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HELEN NIC 




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Copyright^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE BOOK OF 
AMERICAN WARS 




GEORGE WASHINGTON 

From the Athenseum portrait by Gilbert Stuart 



THE BOOK OF 
AMERICAN WARS 



BY 

HELEN NICOLAY 

Author of "Personal Traits of Abraham 
Lincoln," "Our Nation in the 
Building," "Boys' Life of 
Abraham Lincoln," etc. 



ILLUSTRATED WITH 
PORTRAITS AND MAPS 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1918 



. 



Copyright, 1918, by 
The Century Co. 



Published, October, 1918 



OCT -I I9!8 
©GLA50362ti 



TO 

AMERICA'S BOYS IN THE 
PRESENT WAR 



PREFACE 

The United States is a country dedicated to 
freedom and to peace. Yet, first and last, it has 
been called upon to do a deal of fighting, and has 
done it well. 

This volume does not pretend to go into details. 
It does not even touch upon the longest of all our 
wars, the one that continued intermittently for 
over two hundred and fifty years between hostile 
Indians and white men who were not always 
blameless. 

It is an attempt to tell in a few words and in 
broad outline why our principal wars were fought, 
and how; to point out how one American war 
has differed from another in glory; and to show 
that wars, like mountain ranges or human beings, 
have personal characteristics of their own. 

Washington, D. C. H. N. 

September, 191 8 



CONTENTS 

COLONIAL 

PAGE 

Our Heritage of Courage 3 

Hunters or Husbandmen? 13 

Washington's Baptism uy Fire 25 

Madness $7 

"Valor Gave Them a United Death" 53 

REVOLUTION — A Fight for Nationality 

Smugglers in Self-Defense 69 

Mobs and Motives 78 

Real War, and a Real General 93 

Will-o'-the-wisp Soldiers 108 

The British Wedge 118 

"British Soldiers do not Retreat" 132 

The Turncoat 144 

The End of the War 156 

WAR OF 1812 — A Fight for Fair Play 

America Afloat 177 

A Captured Capital 198 

MEXICAN WAR— A Fight for Conquest 

A General Despite Politics 215 

The Road that Cortes Traveled 234 



CONTENTS 

CIVIL WAR— A Fight for Freedom 

PAGE 

King Cotton's Black Heart 247 

The Shot that Cleared the Air 258 

Brother Against Brother 269 

The Knell of the Old Navy 286 

The Chosen One 297 

The Man who was not Wanted 314 

The Land of the Free 331 

A Momentous Fourth of July 345 

The Battle in the Clouds 368 

All Together 383 

A Generous Victor 396 

SPANISH WAR— A Fight for a Weak Neighbor 

The Unexpected 413 

Pride and Humiliation 433 

1917 — A Fight for Humanity 

Our Heritage of Responsibility 457 

Appendix — Maps 469 

Index 479 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

George Washington Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

General James Wolfe 48 

Alexander Hamilton 96 

John Paul Jones 144 

The Marquis de Lafayette 160 

Andrew Jackson 208 

Winfield Scott 240 

Abraham- Lincoln 280 

Stonewall Jackson 304 

General Ulysses S. Grant 320 

General Robert E. Lee 360 

General W. T. Sherman 388 

General Philip H. Sheridan 400 

Major-General Wesley Merritt 416 

Admiral George Dewey 424 

General Nelson A. Miles 45 2 



PART I 
COLONIAL 



THE BOOK OF 
AMERICAN WARS 

CHAPTER I 

OUR HERITAGE OF COURAGE 

IT took courage to become an American. To- 
day it is hard to realize how much was neces- 
sary. Discoverer, explorer, and settler crossed 
the Atlantic, each in turn endowed with a differ- 
ent kind of courage. That of the settlers was not 
the least, for the discoverers and explorers, from 
Columbus down, were sustained by the spirit of 
adventure. They were out to see strange sights ; 
they hoped to gain fame and fortune; but what- 
ever their luck, they had always the sustaining 
hope of returning home to share with friends and 
countrymen the memory of their travels. 

With the actual settlers it was very different: 
they expected to live and die in the wilderness. 
No matter how unhappy, or even tragic, their 
lives had been up to that moment, it must have 
seemed like stepping into an open grave when they 
set foot upon the uncomfortable little boats that 

3 



4 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

brought them across the Atlantic. They had 
looked for the last time on home and kindred. 
And when, after tossing about for weeks and 
even months, suffering everything that the sea 
and their own thoughts could inflict on them, they 
came to land, it was to find that while they had 
left oppression and injustice behind, they had also 
left behind much that was agreeable. In place of 
the smiling, cultivated fields of the Old World, 
they saw only forests or forbidding rocks or, at 
best, untilled, grassy glades. For the herds and 
granaries of Europe they had only the small rem- 
nants of musty food left from the long voyage. 
Until something could be improvised on shore 
there was absolutely nothing for shelter except 
the ships they had come in. They had to send the 
ships back for supplies or they would indeed per- 
ish. It was not only food that they lacked. 
With good luck they might expect to provide that 
for themselves. But they had been able to bring 
with them only the smallest outfit of tools and 
clothing and guns, or even of ammunition for the 
guns they had ; and there was not a place for the 
making of any of these articles within three thou- 
sand watery miles. Whatever their feelings as 
they stepped aboard the ships to leave home, it 
was like the closing of a grave to watch them fade 
into the blue distance, eastward bound. The sea 



OUR HERITAGE OF COURAGE 5 

never looked so vast or the forest so full of danger 
as when they turned again toward their make- 
shift dwellings. It was for better, for worse, for 
all of life, and until death made them part of its 
very earth that they had given themselves to the 
New World. 

It happened that settlers from England had 
most to do with founding the colonies that after- 
ward became the United States; but we cannot 
understand our own history without giving a mo- 
ment's thought to their neighbors. Columbus, as 
we all know, never saw the mainland of North 
America. Five years after his wonderful first 
voyage another man, John Cabot, an Italian navi- 
gator in the English service, landed somewhere 
on the Atlantic coast between Labrador and Nova 
Scotia, and took possession of it in the name of 
the English king, Henry VII. Thus England en- 
tered her claim to North America very early in- 
deed. During the next hundred years Spaniards 
had the greatest success in such enterprises. 
Following the lead of Columbus, they sailed to- 
ward the south, saw the wonders of Mexico and 
Peru, looked upon the Pacific Ocean, and pushed 
as far north as our Southern States. Then Eng- 
land and France came again to the front, and 
France made thrilling voyages of exploration, 
taking a northerly route, sailing up the St. Law- 



6 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

rence and into the Great Lakes and following the 
Mississippi down to the Gulf of Mexico. 

Although the English put in their claim early, 
for ninety years they did virtually nothing in the 
way of settlement or discovery. Spain had many 
ships; the English had few; and it was only after 
Drake's victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588 
that they could sail where they would. After 
that happened, they confined their attention to 
the stretch of North Atlantic coast that they 
called Virginia, leaving extended inland explora- 
tions to the French. Yet, despite the many years 
that passed between John Cabot's voyage and the 
sinking of the Spanish fleet, there are those who 
believe they see in that voyage of the Italian 
explorer the beginning of England's victorious 
navy. Cabot reported that he had encountered 
great schools of fish, numerous enough to stop a 
vessel. These reports encouraged fishermen to 
venture out to capture them. Stout ships had to 
be built to live in those stormy northern seas, and 
strong, able sailors were the only kind to man 
them. From these, as a beginning, grew the skill 
and the fleets with which Drake swaggered joy- 
ously and victoriously around the world. 

Almost every expedition of importance tried 
to make some sort of settlement in America, but 
ill luck dogged them. Hardship does not always 



OUR HERITAGE OF COURAGE 7 

sweeten human nature, and in the little groups 
that made up these first settlements there were 
persons of varying degrees of wisdom and self- 
ishness; some who were friends by instinct and 
others who were enemies without knowing why. 
Sudden danger, such as an Indian raid, might 
unite them all while it lasted; but in seasons of 
comparative prosperity quarrels were sure to 
arise. When we consider the danger from In- 
dians, the danger from pestilence and famine, and 
the danger from explosive human nature, it seems 
a miracle that America was colonized at all. 

It was very difficult. The Spaniards only suc- 
ceeded in making one settlement that was des- 
tined to last and become part of the United 
States. This was St. Augustine, founded in 
1565, almost three quarters of a century after 
the first voyage of Columbus. Jamestown was 
established in Virginia by the English in 1607; 
but England had been trying vainly for twenty- 
nine years to found a colony. France was un- 
successful in Canada and Florida for sixty-eight 
years before she laid the foundations of Quebec 
in 1608. Meantime, because of famine or sick- 
ness or attack by Indians or by white explorers 
with whom their country happened to be at war, 
settlement after settlement, begun in high hope, 
disappeared utterly. What became of some of 



8 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

them is not known to this day ; the tragic fate of 
others was learned only too well by later comers. 

Although a large amount of American terri- 
tory was soon covered, and returning voyagers 
brought back strange plants and animals and even 
Indians to prove their wonderful stories, these 
stories were wild indeed. One was that North 
America was inhabited by fauns. Only enough 
was known to arouse curiosity. Not only kings 
and nobles and rich merchants talked about it; 
there was scarcely a man so ignorant that he did 
not repeat fables and indulge in guesses about the 
New World. Perhaps this was just as well, for 
if the early settlers had realized what they would 
find here or had dreamed of what they must suf- 
fer, they would never have come. 

But they did come, and settlements began to 
multiply. It was a time of great unrest and long- 
ing. Changes were taking place in trade, in poli- 
tics, in religion, in ways of thinking, and ways of 
living. Ever since Europe had possessed a his- 
tory the strong had ruled the weak, and the poor 
had been virtually the slaves of the rich. Very 
great things had been accomplished under these 
conditions. Immense castles had been built for 
the glory of kings, and immense and beautiful ca- 
thedrals raised to the glory of God. Universi- 
ties had been founded; wars had been waged, 



OUR HERITAGE OF COURAGE 9 

great fortunes made. The need to safeguard the 
fortunes and to keep order so that the other ad- 
vantages of civilized life could be enjoyed were 
bringing about increased respect for law and jus- 
tice. Men with clear minds and warm hearts 
were beginning, to use their reason, and to ask 
whether any human being, even a king or a pope, 
had the right to be absolute master of another 
man's mind. The discovery of America greatly 
quickened such thoughts, and in time our New 
England colonies were peopled by sturdy men and 
women who came to find out the answer to just 
such questions. 

From the beginning the Spanish and the 
French on the one hand and the English on the 
other entertained totally different ideas about 
their American colonies. To make this plain it 
may be said that the Spaniards and the French 
looked upon America as a mine, while England 
thought of it as a farm. The first two took riches 
from it greedily, but were unwilling to put im- 
provements upon it in return ; England, however, 
desired to make permanent settlements and to 
develop the country, — to make real colonies. 

Explorers from Spain had gone in search of 
gold. They believed tales about rivers of dia- 
monds and trees that bore rubies. They imag- 
ined cities where every lintel was studded with 



io THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

emeralds, where every man was a silversmith, 
and every woman wore a golden chain. Also, 
they searched for a fountain of eternal youth. 
The story of their early explorations reads like a 
wonderful romance. Not only did they start out 
in search of fairy tales; they saw very marvel- 
ous things, and their adventures lost nothing 
in the telling. Brave to the point of recklessness, 
they feared nothing on earth. They feared a 
great deal in Heaven, as they imagined Heaven, 
and, being religious after their fashion, laid great 
stress on converting the natives to Christianity. 
But they treated them as only fit for slavery, and 
at times were shockingly cruel. 

The more practical French had not much faith 
in fables about golden cities and fountains of eter- 
nal youth. Their main object was to gain ter- 
ritory for their king; and like the Spaniards, they 
were eager to convert the Indians. They went 
about it in a kinder and more sympathetic spirit 
and, on the whole, managed to keep the friendship 
of the red men better than other Europeans. 
Many priests accompanied their expeditions ; but 
their story is no less marvelous and dramatic 
than that of the Spaniards. It tells of remark- 
able devotion, and of torture and suffering of 
all sorts endured as they carried loyalty to their 
king and the banners of their saints through end- 



OUR HERITAGE OF COURAGE n 

less leagues of our northern woods. Though 
their explorations led them through a region 
that has since become famous for its mines of 
copper and iron, they did not dream of all this 
hidden wealth. They saw a country rich in furs, 
which might be bought from the Indians for a 
handful of trinkets, and in this the French gov- 
ernment recognized a mine well worth working. 

As far as the records show, the English had 
small concern for the Indians' immortal souls. 
Yet they thought themselves, rightly enough, 
God-fearing folk. Three classes of people made 
up their growing colonies in the New World. 
There were men who had money to "adventure" ; 
who were ready for any sort of speculation that 
promised well. Then there were the planters, 
who did not care for that form of gambling in a 
savage region, but who came intending to clear 
the land and engage in agriculture. Last and 
most important in the making of our history were 
the earnest and pious men and women, interested 
in questions of right and wrong, who emigrated 
to America because they could not live in England 
as their consciences dictated. The first had the 
courage to risk their fortunes. The second 
risked their lives as well. The third came bring- 
ing the courage of their convictions. 

Between them all, the English settlers and 



12 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

those from Spain and France, they planted upon 
fertile American soil most of the kinds of courage 
that have been potent in making the world's his- 
tory. 



CHAPTER II 

HUNTERS OR HUSBANDMEN 

AS the years passed, and the English colonies 
grew, each went on working for itself. 
What little heed they paid to neighbors was usu- 
ally in the nature of criticism, for no two were 
alike, and each strongly preferred its own ways. 
Yet there was a family resemblance among them, 
and all were loyally English. The men and 
women who, for religion's sake, had sailed across 
the ocean to settle in the region of Massachusetts 
Bay, had preferred the privations of a colony in 
the wilderness to the hospitality of any nation 
where their children might lose affection for Eng- 
land or forget their mother-tongue. The well- 
to-do planters of Virginia and Carolina, whose 
interests were bound up in the growing of to- 
bacco, sent their sons "back home" to be edu- 
cated, and imported from England the books and 
good furniture and good wines with which their 
mansions were well stocked. 

Individually, the colonists of both regions, rich 
and poor alike, were sturdy and independent. A 
century and more of colonial experience had 

13 



14 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

taught them many things. They had learned to 
do without much that was considered necessary at 
home, and to do the essential things for them- 
selves. Because they were far away they had 
been forced to decide matters of government 
without waiting for permission from king or Par- 
liament; and because distances were vast even 
between the settlements of the same colony, these 
settlements got into the way of sending men to 
represent them and to look out for their interests 
at the place where the colonial governor had his 
residence. From this custom colonial legisla- 
tures developed almost of their own accord. The 
form of government differed in detail for each 
colony; yet there was one feature common to all 
that differed from any form of local government 
in Old England. England had nothing to say 
about local taxes in the colonies. That was a 
question for the colonial legislatures. Each de- 
cided for itself how much money should be raised 
and how it should be spent. This must not be 
forgotten, for it is the basic fact of much Ameri- 
can history. 

One other thing that Americans learned in their 
years of colonial experience was the great les- 
son that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. 
They had not grown from a mere handful of Eu- 
ropeans living behind stockades, within sight of 



HUNTERS OR HUSBANDMEN 15 

the ocean, to their present condition of thirteen 
prosperous colonies without having to fight for 
peace. They had been trained in battle from the 
very beginning. Indians had been the bane of 
every new settlement, and Indian massacres the 
crudest visitations of pioneer life. The very ne- 
cessity of the case had made every settler an ex- 
pert marksman. He kept his loaded weapon be- 
side him as he tilled his field, and carried it on his 
shoulder when he went to church. Inside the 
cabin it rested on a rack, ready to his hand. As 
settlements grew, and some of the cabins gave 
way to fine houses for rich folk, the habit re- 
mained. The southern planter had his guns and 
his horses and his dogs. The main difference 
was that he owned more of each than his equally 
prosperous New England brother. 

It was not only against the Indians that the 
colonists had been forced to defend themselves. 
Time and again the French in Canada had allied 
themselves with the savages and descended upon 
English settlements. During the final seventy- 
five years that the French owned Canada there 
was open hostility about half the time. "King 
William's War" lasted from 1689 to 1697. Be- 
tween 1703 and 1713 there was a decade of 
fighting known as Governor Dudley's Indian 
War, Governor Dudley being at that time gov- 



16 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

ernor of Massachusetts. Governor Drummer's 
Indian War occurred between 1722 and 1725. 
Between 1744 and 1749 there were five more 
years of fighting; in 1754 war was again declared, 
and continued until 1763, when France gave up 
her Canadian possessions to the British. This 
last is the struggle known as the French and In- 
dian War, the only one with which, for the pur- 
poses of this volume, we have to concern our- 
selves. 

Reasons for such wholesale hostilities were 
several. In the first place, loyal colonies were 
supposed to be ready to do battle whenever the 
mother countries went to war, and England and 
France had long ago formed the habit of flying 
at each other's throats. Then there was the 
standing quarrel as to which country really had 
the best right to Canada. England based her 
claim upon John Cabot's landing in 1497. 
France pretended to believe that this never hap- 
pened, and pointed to her actual settlements. 
French explorers had pushed farther inland than 
the English ever thought of doing; French trap- 
pers and fur-traders had managed to link Can- 
ada with far-off Louisiana by a chain of posts on 
the St. Lawrence, on Lake Erie, near streams 
that led into the Mississippi, and on that mighty 
river itself. Even before 1700 the French real- 



HUNTERS OR HUSBANDMEN 17 

ized the great importance of this, and one gov- 
ernor of Canada implored those in authority at 
home to send out ten thousand men and women to 
settle in the Ohio valley. 

This brings us to the third and most important 
reason. Canada was rich in furs, but too far 
north for the profitable growing of corn, and in 
order to make the most of her great game-pre- 
serve north of the St. Lawrence River, it seemed 
evident that France must either gain a foot-hold 
on the Atlantic coast far enough south to grow 
grain, or keep supremacy in the valley of the 
Ohio. The country farther to the north and west 
that has since produced such wonderful crops of 
wheat was then unknown and uncharted. Even 
the country between the Alleghanies and the Mis- 
sissippi was hardly inhabited by white men; but 
the English were increasing rapidly, and their 
settlements crept steadily forward. It was the 
part of wisdom, therefore, to take steps that 
would prevent their spreading farther. So the 
real and fundamental issue was the possession of 
territory, — was whether the opening wilderness 
of North America should belong to French 
Canadian huntsmen or to British farmers. 

As there were no roads back of the settled dis- 
tricts near the Atlantic, it was impossible for any 
large number of white men to travel in company 



18 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

into those regions except along the natural water- 
ways. Consequently, the government that held 
the few points to which these waterways inevit- 
ably led possessed the whole region. With this 
in mind, a single glance at the map shows how 
important was the line held by the French. They 
could sail along the St. Lawrence to Lake Erie, 
travel only a short distance by land, and reach 
streams that flowed into the Ohio, which, in turn, 
carried them into the Mississippi and through the 
center of the continent to the Gulf of Mexico. If 
they chose, instead, to leave the St. Lawrence at 
a point not far from Montreal, they could follow 
the Richelieu River to Lake Champlain and go on 
into Lake George, known at that time as the Lake 
of the Holy Sacrament, from which it was only a 
step to the upper waters of the Hudson River 
which led straight south into the very heart of 
British colonial possessions. 

Every decisive battle of the French and Indian 
War took place on one or the other of these lines : 
at Fort Duquesne, near the forks of the Ohio, 
where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers 
come together to form that stream; or on Lake 
Erie; or somewhere on the St. Lawrence River 
or Gulf of St. Lawrence; or in the neighborhood 
of Lake George. Although dominance in the 
West was the prize, most of the fighting occurred 



HUNTERS OR HUSBANDMEN 19 

in the East, because population was thicker there, 
and because the St. Lawrence, Lake Champlain, 
and the Hudson formed a direct route between the 
main strongholds of the two combatants. 

France was the most powerful nation of Eu- 
rope at that time, and this in itself gave the Cana- 
dians one advantage over their opponents. They 
lived under a strong central government whose 
orders had to be obeyed without question whether 
they were good or bad. When they were told to 
furnish a certain number of men, those men had 
to be forthcoming if it was physically possible. 
In the British colonies each separate legislature 
discussed such matters, voted whether or not to 
send out soldiers, decided how many should be 
raised in case any were raised, for how long a 
time they should be enlisted, and the rate at which 
they should be paid. It was rare indeed for two 
colonies to settle such questions at the same time 
or in the same way, and the resulting confusion 
can be imagined. In the long run it proved a 
blessing, for even the mistakes trained the people 
in self-government until they were fit to become 
an independent nation ; but it distinctly hurt their 
cause in the French and Indian War. 

Two things made war in America different 
from war in Europe. The first was that it took 
place in a new and uncleared country. Battles 



2o THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

were fought in thick woods where the most skil- 
ful general ever born could not have marched 
and deployed his troops or conducted his cam- 
paign as was done over the field and roads of 
a long-settled country. War in America had 
something the character of the old border forays 
between England and Scotland, where a few men 
under daring leaders swooped down upon tempo- 
rarily defenseless towns or upon laborers in the 
field, captured, looted, and burned, and returned 
to their own territory with prisoners and booty. 
But it was even more primitive, for the fields were 
only clearings in the forest where corn grew be- 
tween stumps of trees. Instead of old gray-stone 
cities, there were new settlements, scarcely be- 
gun; and in place of castles, square blockhouses 
built of heavy logs and surrounded by palisades 
of upright logs planted side by side as a protection 
against Indian attacks. 

It was, however, the Indians who gave to these 
wars American peculiarities that lasted long after 
the Indians themselves had passed on to other 
hunting-grounds. Both the English and French 
feared them as enemies and sought them as allies ; 
and both, be it said to their shame, allowed them 
to do battle after their own savage fashion, with 
details too horrible to dwell upon. Although 
they were not always to be trusted as friends, it 



HUNTERS OR HUSBANDMEN 21 

may be said in a general way that the Algonquins 
and kindred tribes living in Canada sided with 
the French, while the smaller, but more ferocious, 
group known as the Six Nations, among which 
were the Iroquois and the Mohawks of western 
New York, fought on the side of the British. In- 
dians have proverbially long memories, and Iro- 
quois hatred of the French dated back to 1609 
when Champlain, just to show his power, pointed 
his loaded harquebus straight at an Iroquois chief 
and fired. Two Indians fell dead at the shot, and 
the rest fled; but the deed was never forgiven. 
Had it not occurred, it is possible that the north- 
ern boundary-line of the United States might 
have curved much further to the south. 

The French Catholics had been more success- 
ful than British Protestants in gaining the friend- 
ship of the Indians and converting them to Chris- 
tianity. Indeed, the British seem to have been 
almost insultingly indifferent to the red men's 
natural likes and dislikes; but the French, with 
greater sympathy and understanding of their na- 
tures, worked hard to keep their good will, and 
indulged their fondness for feasting and display, 
even at times when they themselves had to go 
hungry. A few who were not above turning 
religion to base uses tried to inflame race hatred 
by telling them that Christ had been a French- 



22 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

man, cruelly murdered by the English. Those 
who did not go so far as this made much of a fact 
that the Indians were just beginning to compre- 
hend, namely, that the British intended to culti- 
vate the land and would drive the Indians away 
from it forever. As far as the Indians could see, 
the French cared only for the hunting and were 
quite willing to share it with its original owners. 
All in all, it is small wonder that they preferred 
the French. 

Official records seem to prove that the French 
authorities in Canada, having gained their 
friendship, fitted out scores and perhaps hundreds 
of parties of savages, paid and fed them, and sent 
them, either alone or in company with French sol- 
diers, to make dashes upon the homes and farms 
of their British neighbors, committing all the 
barbarities of savage warfare. They shot down 
men at work ; killed their animals and cut out their 
tongues; seized women and children, braining 
such as they did not choose to carry into captivity, 
and, loading the others with packs of their own 
looted goods, drove them into the wilderness. If 
they became too weak to stagger along under their 
heavy burdens, they were killed, and their scalps 
torn off and, on the return of the expedition, ex- 
hibited at headquarters for the sake of the boun- 
ties France paid on such bloody tokens. 



HUNTERS OR HUSBANDMEN 23 

The English record is not without similar 
stains. The French seem to have done such 
things oftener, but British colonists were quite 
willing to treat the Indian according to his own 
code of warfare, and accounts of such expedi- 
tions give inordinate praise or scathing blame for 
the very same acts according as they were com- 
mitted by friend or foe. There is a book, called 
a "Diary of Depredations," which contains a long 
list of such horrors. It not only leaves the reader 
sick at heart, but wondering how the frontier 
ever came to be settled. But such books gather 
within the limits of a few pages incidents and out- 
rages that extended over a long frontier and a 
long term of years. There were intervals of 
peace, or comparative quiet, lasting until the set- 
tlers took fresh courage and dared push forward 
to open up new fields. If the Indians showed 
themselves at all during such times, it was to 
lounge about farms and settlements, demanding 
food and gifts, making themselves a nuisance, 
but apparently harmless. 

But their very presence, indeed even their ab- 
sence, held tragic possibilities. Any one of these 
brown loafers might change in an instant to a 
fiend incarnate. Any tree might hide a lurking 
enemy. More than a century of such evil possi- 
bilities, alternating with their actual happening, 



24 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

had trained American men in sharpness of sight 
and correctness of aim unknown abroad, and in 
habits of fighting behind shelter quite out of keep- 
ing with current ideas of honorable warfare as 
it was practised in Europe. All of these habits 
and practices had to be proved and tested in blood 
during the battles of the French and Indian 
War. 



CHAPTER III 
Washington's baptism by fire 

ALTHOUGH fought for an American object, 
on American soil, this most important of 
American colonial wars was really a part of the 
great Seven Years' War in Europe, in which 
France, Austria, Russia, Sweden, and Saxony- 
banded together to destroy the power of Fred- 
erick the Great England sided with Frederick, 
and since England and France had such large pos- 
sessions in America, each hastened to send sol- 
diers to guard its own territory and, if possible, 
capture that of its adversary. 

The British were not indifferent to the rich 
prize of the Ohio Valley. As early as the autumn 
of 1753 Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia sent a 
tall young man out into western Pennsylvania to 
warn the French away from certain posts that 
they were establishing. Although only twenty- 
one, this young man had been adjutant-general of 
Virginia forces for two years, having been given 
the office with the title of major at the age of nine- 
teen, when his half-brother, Lawrence Washing- 

25 



26 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

ton, who held it before him, had to retire on ac- 
count of ill health. The younger Washington 
was not uncomely, though his face was pitted with 
smallpox; and he was far from awkward, despite 
the fact that he was still so young that his hands 
seemed disproportionately large. He had an easy 
bearing, and held his naturally hot temper so 
well under control that his unruffled calm im- 
pressed older men as indicating unusual strength 
of character. Lawrence was a man of large 
property, but George was comparatively poor, for 
the Virginia law gave the lion's share of a fa- 
ther's estate to the eldest born. Fond of outdoor 
life, and not much of a student, he had left school 
at fifteen, and had since spent three years in the 
woods, following the profession of surveyor. He 
was no stranger, therefore, to the kind of coun- 
try into which Governor Dinwiddie sent him. 
He carried his message, and was received and 
treated with personal courtesy by the French of- 
ficer to whom he delivered it, but was given an 
answer that amounted to a notice that the French 
intended to build forts where they pleased, with 
the gratuitous advice added that the English 
had better keep hands off. This answer he 
brought back through winter woods in a journey 
that did not lack exciting moments. Once he was 
a target at close range for an Indian's aim; and 



WASHINGTON'S BAPTISM BY FIRE 27 

having miraculously escaped death in that form, 
he had the misfortune to slip from a raft into the 
icy, rushing waters of the Allegheny River. 

The French answer could have, of course, only 
one meaning, and the following April saw young 
Washington once more on his way West, this 
time as lieutenant-colonel at the head of a few 
hundred men sent to the forks of the Ohio to re- 
inforce some Virginians who were building a fort 
of their own. Before the reinforcements ar- 
rived, however, the fort had been captured, to be 
finished according to French plans and named 
Duquesne in honor of the Canadian governor. 

Learning that he had come too late, Washing- 
ton turned homeward, but was attacked at a place 
called Great Meadows. Here his men held off a 
mixed force of about one thousand Canadians, 
French, and Indians from ten o'clock in the morn- 
ing until sundown, and that night took refuge in 
a stockade which they called Fort Necessity. An 
Iroquois chief who witnessed the battle said con- 
temptuously that the English behaved like fools, 
and the French like cowards. Only one who 
thoroughly understands the Indian mind can tell 
just what this really means. It probably means, 
however, that some of the wounded Canadians 
showed their suffering, and that the English 
fought in the open. According to the red man's 



28 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

code, both were exceedingly bad form. It was 
a point of Indian honor never to show pain, and a 
matter of skill and prudence never to fight in the 
open so long as there was a bush or a stone behind 
which to take shelter. 

Fort Necessity held out as long as possible, but 
in the end was obliged to strike its colors. As 
luck would have it, this first and last surrender on 
Washington's part, the outcome of his first real 
battle, took place on a date familiar to Americans 
for reasons not at all connected with defeat. It 
Was on the fourth of July, twenty-two years be- 
fore the Declaration of Independence that the 
future American commander-in-chief and his lit- 
tle army marched out of Fort Necessity ; but they 
did so with colors flying and band playing, with 
all the honors of war. 

Since both sides had acted under orders from 
their home governments, it was evident that this 
was no mere border disturbance, but the begin- 
ning of serious war. That far-seeing man, Ben- 
jamin Franklin, was sure that in the troublous 
times ahead the colonies could do much better if 
they worked together rather than each for itself. 
Even before the battle of Great Meadows he had 
printed an account of the capture and renaming 
of Fort Duquesne, illustrating it by a woodcut 
of a rattlesnake divided into thirteen pieces, with 



WASHINGTON'S BAPTISM BY FIRE 29 

the legend, "Join or die." After the battle he 
drew up a plan for uniting the thirteen colonies 
under one government for purposes that con- 
cerned them all, while leaving each free to man- 
age its local affairs; but he was twenty years 
ahead of his time, and the colonies refused to 
consider it. 

In laying plans for the war, England decided 
that four things were necessary. Fort Duquesne 
must be recaptured in order that English settlers 
could pour at will into the Ohio valley. "The ex- 
ceeding strong city of Louisburg" on Cape 
Breton, with its walls and its guns, must be sub- 
dued, for only so could England control the Cana- 
dian sea-coast and the Newfoundland fisheries. 
The French fort at Niagara, guarding the water 
route between Canada and Louisiana, must be 
taken; and last, but not least, Quebec, Canada's 
great post for supplying all her inland settle- 
ments, must pass into British hands. Once these 
four places were captured, French power in 
North America would be gone. 

In the spring of 1755 Admiral Boscawen was 
sent over with a fleet to keep French ships from 
entering the St. Lawrence, and General Brad- 
dock, a brave old soldier of forty years' expe- 
rience, came to take command of the land forces. 
He brought only two regiments with him, for 



30 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

England meant to accomplish her results with 
the help of colonial troops. But the English au- 
thorities had so little confidence in American mili- 
tia officers that they decreed that Americans 
should have no rank at all in the field when Eng- 
lish officers were present. Furious at the injus- 
tice of this, Washington and a number of others 
offered their resignations. 

Little as he esteemed colonials, General Brad- 
dock had to admit that the leading men of the 
colonies knew more about their own people and 
country than he had been able to find out in Lon- 
don; therefore his first act was to call a confer- 
ence to which four of the governors came, with 
Washington, Franklin, and some others. Eng- 
land not only meant to carry on the war with co- 
lonial troops, but with colonial money, and Brad- 
dock did not conceal his annoyance that a goodly 
sum was not already collected and ready for him. 
The order relating to American officers had not 
increased cordiality or made it easier for the peo- 
ple to unite whole-heartedly in contributing troops 
and money for the war ; but conditions along the 
border were so menacing that Pennsylvania, New 
York, and Virginia, where the danger was great- 
est, quickly stifled their resentment and voted 
the needed men and supplies. In June, General 
Braddock was able to set out against Fort Du- 



WASHINGTON'S BAPTISM BY FIRE 31 

quesne. Washington, who knew the country 
thoroughly, evidently made an impression on the 
old general, and he did the wisest thing of his 
stay in America when he invited the tall young 
Virginian to become a member of his staff. 
Washington accepted the offer. 

There were mountains to be crossed and 
streams to be bridged on the line of march. Part 
of the distance lay through virtually trackless for- 
est, and the army had literally to build the high- 
way it traveled upon. Progress was therefore 
very slow, as week after week the men toiled at 
"the most diabolical work of road-building" 
through the mountains, felling trees, dragging 
away boulders, establishing some sort of grade 
over the Alleghanies, and smoothing a way not 
only for their own feet, but for countless pilgrims 
who were to pass west over "Braddock's old 
road" long after he and his ill-fated army were 
dust. 

Perhaps it was his forty years of success that 
proved Braddock's undoing. He was as opinion- 
ated as he was brave, a stubborn believer in dis- 
cipline and in doing things according to rule. 
Above all he had no mind to take advice from 
mere Americans, and when they tried to tell him 
about Indian methods and to warn him that Eu- 
ropean tactics could not be used against such a 



32 L THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

foe, he answered that, of course, raw American 
militia was easily routed, but that his trained men 
would have no trouble. So mile after mile his 
army crawled through the forest, advancing as 
nearly as possible by the rules it would have fol- 
lowed over the turnpikes of the old country, and 
totally unaware that Indian eyes watched every 
move. 

It was on the ninth of July, after a month and 
eight days of such weary progress, when at last 
the expedition was within a few miles of its goal, 
that the forest suddenly rang with hideous war- 
cries. The astounded general had momentary 
glimpses of French and red men, hundreds of 
them apparently, running between tree-trunks 
from cover to cover. Each tree became a sepa- 
rate fortress, sending out death. The king's 
troops formed in regular ranks, as they had been 
taught to do, and fired as best they could at their 
unseen foes. But their red coats made pathetic- 
ally fatal marks, and they fell as they stood, in 
ranks, but continuing to fight as long as life 
lasted. The colonials broke for cover, to respond 
with the enemy's own methods ; but the stubborn 
old general forbade them to do this, and for two 
hours they endured a useless test of courage. 
One Virginia band that had entered the battle 



WASHINGTON'S BAPTISM BY FIRE 33 

with three companies came out with less than 
thirty men. 

Braddock himself fought as such a general 
would fight, and his officers were no whit behind 
him in bravery. It was when mounted on his 
fifth horse, four having been killed under him, 
that he received his mortal wound. Washington 
was one of the few who went through unscathed, 
though he lost two horses and had twice that 
number of bullet-holes through his clothing. 
Out of about fifteen hundred officers and men un- 
der Braddock two thirds were either killed or 
wounded, while the attacking party lost alto- 
gether about seventy. Needless to say, Fort Du- 
quesne remained in French hands. Indeed, the 
British retreat became a rout, though there was 
no pursuit. According to their gruesome cus- 
tom, the Indians stopped to plunder the dead, and 
their allies, apparently satisfied with their vic- 
tory, returned to the fort. Braddock, who had 
been shot through the lungs, lived four days. 
It fell to Washington's lot to read the burial 
service over him when they made his grave at: 
Great Meadows where the remnants of his force 
halted to reorganize. 

It was not until three years later that the Eng- 
lish gained possession of Fort Duquesne or, 



34 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

rather, of its smoking ruins. The general plan 
of campaign did not change in all that time, but 
interest centered more and more in the region of 
the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain, and, con- 
sequently, Fort Duquesne was left very much to 
one side. It was only after the fortunes of war 
had gone against the French elsewhere, and they 
knew it could no longer be permanently defended, 
that its garrison applied the torch and scattered 
to the four winds. Washington, commanding 
nineteen hundred Virginians, formed part of the 
expedition that finally brought this about, though 
in the long months after Braddock's defeat he had 
been given only the vexatious and inglorious duty 
of trying to defend several hundred miles of fron- 
tier with a totally inadequate force. Forbes, 
known to his soldiers as "Head of Iron," was the 
English general under whom the young American 
was now serving. Against Washington's judg- 
ment he decided to force a new and shorter path 
through Pennsylvania instead of following Brad- 
dock's old road. Once again the army crawled 
forward, moving even more slowly than it might 
otherwise have done, because General Forbes, 
suffering from a fatal illness, had to be carried in 
a litter. Once again, as they neared the fort, a 
body of English skirmishers, sent forward to re- 
connoiter, was set upon in force, and once again 



WASHINGTON'S BAPTISM BY FIRE 35 

there might have been a massacre, had it not been 
for the coolness of Washington's Virginians. 
As it was, the English were badly beaten. Sev- 
eral weeks later when the commander, whose 
physical strength ebbed perceptibly day by day, 
came up with the main body of his army, a coun- 
cil of war decided to advance no farther. But 
soon after this Washington learned that the In- 
dians were deserting Fort Duquesne and that the 
commander had felt obliged to send away part of 
his white garrison. He immediately despatched 
twenty-five hundred picked men who made a 
march of great swiftness over paths wet and 
sticky with melting November snow, and arrived 
to find the place a smoking ruin. The British 
flag was raised over the embers, and a party 
pressed on to Braddock's Field to bury their com- 
rades killed three years before. One young offi- 
cer recognized in two skeletons, still locked in an 
embrace of death, the mortal remains 'of his own 
father and brother. 

Although Duquesne was in ruins, the position 
was too important to be abandoned. A few huts 
were built and enclosed by a stout stockade. All 
the supplies that could be spared were collected, 
and two hundred men, the largest number that 
could live through the winter on this food, were 
left in the little post, which the general named 



36 [THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Fort Pitt in honor of his friend the British pre- 
mier. This was the beginning of Pittsburgh, an 
iron city. General Forbes, "Head of Iron," was 
carried by painful stages back to Philadelphia, 
where he died a few months later. But this last 
victory of his life won the Ohio Valley for his 
own people. 



CHAPTER IV 

MADNESS 

ONE of the hard things to remember, about 
war, and to endure, is the slowness of it. 
In the course of the French and Indian War 
there were perhaps seventeen important battles, 
the decisive action in all of them occupying con- 
siderably less than a week. Yet between Brad- 
dock's defeat and the time France surrendered 
Canada, there were at least three hundred weeks, 
during every hour of which men had to be fed 
and clothed; women and children suffered, and 
soldiers who would gladly have died upon the 
battle-field were gripped in the slow torture of 
disease. It is hard to believe that "they also 
serve who only stand and wait"; yet that is al- 
ways the greater part of war's grim business. 

For the sake of our story it is not necessary to 
dwell upon even seven of the seventeen battles, 
let alone the long stretches of inactivity. While 
there was no other defeat in 1755 so disastrous 
as that on Braddock's Field, the remaining ex- 
ploits of the year were as humiliating, for they 

37 



3 8 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

showed no more wisdom and far less courage. 
The British sent an expedition against the Aca- 
dians, the French inhabitants of Nova Scotia, 
whose presence had been a cause of quarrel and 
ill-kept treaty between France and England for 
a century and a half. They were devout and 
simple people, who tilled the soil and obeyed 
their pries s and had remained strongly French 
through several nominal changes oi authority. 
To offset their growing numbers the English had 
lately founded Halifax, with four thousand col- 
onists. The Acadians were still in the major- 
however, with leaders who resented the 
r and heavy taxes imposed by the 
English. Differences oi religion doubtless ag- 
gravated the trouble on both sides. The Aca- 
diar.- sed tc :ake an oath of allegiance de- 

manded of them, repented over night, but were 
not afterward allowed to do so. Finally the de- 
went forth that they should be driven from 
their homes. In Tune their two forts, Gaspe- 
reaux and Beau Sejour, had been captured. In 
September a ruse that could only have deceived 
simple folk made the Acadian men prisoners. 
The forced embarcation, begun in September, 
I ^rreat hardship in bitter winter 
weather, seven thousand pious, hard working 
-actically the whole population, be- 



MADNESS 39 

ing sent into exile. It was a bit of tyranny as 
stupid as it was cruel. Shorn of some history 
and embellished by much poetry, Longfellow has 
told of the crime in "Evangeline." Let us leave 
it to him as chronicler. 

An expedition conducted by Governor Shirley 
of Massachusetts against Niagara failed utterly. 
He expected to be joined by Braddock's victori- 
ous army, and when he learned of its defeat he 
abandoned the whole attempt and contented him- 
self with building a fort at Oswego. 

The British scored success in the. neighbor- 
hood of Lake George. William Johnson, the 
most picturesque, though by no means the most 
saintly, white settler of the Mohawk Valley, was 
almost the only man of his race and region who 
knew how to handle the red men. He lived 
among them in a rude sort of splendor with his 
Indian wife, and it was he who gathered a force 
of Indians and colonial militia and marched to 
attack Crown Point at the southern end of Lake 
Champlain, a vital spot on the route from Can- 
ada to the Hudson River that the French so 
longed to control. He met and defeated a force 
of about fourteen hundred on the shores of the 
Lake of the Holy Sacrament, capturing the 
wounded French commander and virtually wip- 
ing out the French regulars. The surprise of 



4 o THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

the engagement, however, was the action of some 
Connecticut militia, who, though they fought just 
as they had come from their farms, with no equip- 
ment and little drill, yet displayed the steadiness 
of veterans. Perhaps they even astonished 
themselves. In honor of this victory and as a 
compliment to the king, Johnson changed the 
name of the lake to Lake George, and he built a 
fort, destined to a tragic end, which he called 
William Henry after the king's grandson. To 
hide the failure of larger hopes, the English Gov- 
ernment made much of these things, Johnson be- 
ing given a grant of five thousand pounds and a 
title, and praised as a hero on both sides of the 
Atlantic. 

The outcome of the defeats and alleged suc- 
cesses of this year was to rouse the colonies to 
the seriousness of the conflict, and to convince 
the English Government that means should be 
found to raise a permanent fund in America for 
carrying on the war. The plan of taxing the 
colonies directly from England was considered. 
It was not then carried out, but when the Earl 
of Loudoun came over the next summer to re- 
place General Braddock, with General Abercrom- 
bie as second in command, he brought powers 
that made them both quite independent of the 
will of colonial assemblies, even of colonial gov- 



MADNESS 41 

ernors appointed by the king. In addition, they 
claimed several small, but irritating, privileges 
that showed the growing disposition to treat the 
colonies less liberally than heretofore. 

The year 1756 was as unlucky for the English 
in America as 1755 had been. The French sent 
over Montcalm, with Levis and Bougainville un- 
der him. This gave them three good generals 
pitted against two who were, to say the least, un- 
fortunate. After Loudoun and Abercrombie ar- 
rived, weeks later than their French adversaries, 
they were slow to make plans, and still slower to 
execute them. In August the French crossed 
from the Canadian side of Lake Ontario and de- 
stroyed the fort at Oswego, leaving on its site 
"two boastful trophies" to impress the Indians. 
Upon this Loudon retreated toward New York, 
felling trees behind him to block pursuit, but 
Montcalm, whose army was only half as large as 
Loudon's, had no notion of pursuing, and took up 
a strong position at Ticonderoga at the northern 
end of Lake George. 

With the exception of building a fort on the 
Tennessee River to protect the English settlers 
from the French in that region, and a fight with 
the Indians near the forks of the Ohio, little of 
note happened before winter set in. Then the 
English generals quartered their troops upon the 



42 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

unwilling inhabitants of New York and Phila- 
delphia, and gave themselves up to a few months 
of ease and social gaiety. The French did the 
same at Montreal ; but the Indians and hardy co- 
lonial troops of both sides, for whom ice and snow 
had no terrors, continued to make border raids 
all winter, repeating the scenes of cruelty that 
had taken place ever since red men and white be- 
gan to dispute possession of the soil. The Earl 
of Loudoun gave part of his time to planning a 
campaign that he meant to make some day against 
Louisburg. He was indefatigable at planning 
expeditions that somehow failed to materialize. 
Somebody compared him to St. George on an inn 
sign, always on horseback, but never getting any- 
where. 

In August of the following summer inaction 
was turned to blackest disaster by a massacre at 
Fort William Henry, the fort that Sir William 
Johnson had built after his victory at Crown 
Point. Montcalm moved upon the fort from Ti- 
conderoga with a force of eight thousand French 
regulars, Canadians, and Indians. The latter 
made up fully a quarter of the whole number, 
and some of them came from as far west as 
Idaho, a region then very remote. They speedily 
became unruly, showing a will to make war in 
their own fashion, even going to the hideous ex- 



MADNESS 43 

tent of cannibalism. They had some strange, 
even complimentary, notion of taking the bravery 
of their enemies into their own bodies by thus 
eating them, which makes the act more under- 
standable if no less revolting. 

Smallpox was raging within the English fort, 
where the commander had five hundred men, with 
seventeen hundred in camp near by. He called 
for help on Fort Edward, where there was a gar- 
rison of twenty-six hundred men; but only two 
hundred were sent him, more being refused on 
the ground that it also was in danger of attack. 
Messengers were despatched in haste to New 
York and New England, but long before aid could 
come from that great distance the tragedy 
was over. The fort held out for five days, sur- 
rendering only after three hundred of its defend- 
ers were dead and as many more wounded. 
Montcalm granted honorable terms, and on the 
morning of August 10 the English garrison 
marched out with all honors as Washington had 
done at Fort Necessity. The French exacted a 
promise from their Indian allies that they would 
respect the white man's rules of war; but the last 
of the garrison was hardly out of the fort before 
they were scaling the walls and wriggling through 
embrasures, bent on murder, attacking the sick, 
and mangling their corpses. Finding very little 



I 



44 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

plunder, they turned their angry attention to the 
camp where the prisoners of war waited to be es- 
corted next day on their way to Fort Edward. 
The French guard held its ground, and Montcalm 
hurried to the scene to threaten and cajole. The 
savages appeared to submit to his authority, but 
at dawn their fury broke out afresh and they at- 
tacked the camp, killing right and left, and car- 
rying off two hundred prisoners, while the fort 
was literally pulled to pieces and its timbers con- 
verted into a huge funeral pyre. Perhaps Mont- 
calm could not have prevented this massacre, but 
the atrocity, committed under his very eyes, did 
much to fasten the accusing name of French and 
Indian War upon the struggle. 

Indignant colonials rushed to the relief of Fort 
Edward from all quarters, but as Montcalm did 
not follow up his advantage, they found little to 
do, and most of them returned to their homes. 
The winter of 1757-58 passed as the previous one 
had done, with the British general in New York 
and the French general in Montreal, the regular 
troops on both sides inactive while Indians and 
colonials made raids and counter-raids across the 
snow. Finally the Earl of Loudoun took himself 
back to London, cursing the Americans for all his 
misfortunes. At the time he went home France 
held possession of the St. Lawrence and the Mis- 



I 



MADNESS 45 

sissippi and every portage between. This gave 
her control of five-sixths of the North American 
continent, the small remainder being divided be- 
tween England and Spain. 

It was only after William Pitt became prime 
minister of England that better days dawned. 
He had been a friend of America for years, and 
it is believed that he outlined the plan with which 
Braddock came to open the war. But at that 
time he held only a minor office and could not 
choose the men to carry it out. He had an eye 
for real ability, and now that he was in power 
he chose four excellent generals. One was Lord 
Amherst, prudent and capable, if cold in manner. 
Another was Lord Howe, beloved by everybody. 
A third was General Forbes, whose American 
history we already know. The fourth was young 
James Wolfe, slight and homely, but the greatest 
of them all. Although the old plan of attack was 
kept, it was decided to begin this year at the other 
end, and work inward from the sea. Amherst 
and Wolfe were to begin by taking Louisburg 
and push on to Quebec. Lord Howe was to join 
Abercrombie in an attack on Ticonderoga, while 
the capture of Fort Duquesne was intrusted to 
General Forbes. 

''Louisburg, for warlike power, the pride and 
terror of these northern seas," was regarded by 



I 



46 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

the French as the key to their holdings in Amer- 
ica. All that portion of the coast was relatively 
of much greater importance then than now, not 
only because it was the part of the American con- 
tinent nearest Europe, but because those schools 
of cod reported by old John Cabot had proved a 
lure to fishermen and had made it the seat of well 
established industry long before the coast to the 
south was fairly settled. Louisburg was a walled 
and fortified town of stone houses, quite like those 
of Europe, guarded toward the sea by frowning 
cliffs, and on the land side by a marsh. Along 
the shore outside its walls, and for miles beyond, 
masked batteries were cunningly hidden. Gen- 
eral Drucourt, the French commander, had an 
ample garrison, but the French ships sent over to 
offset Admiral Boscawen's fleet fared ill, and only 
twelve arrived. Six of these were immediately 
sacrificed, being sunk in the channel to block the 
way. 

This made it impossible for Admiral Boscawen 
to approach the town, but he could still hurl shot 
at it from his guns, and it was under cover of such 
a bombardment that General Wolfe and his sol- 
diers made a landing on June 7, 1758, at a point 
where the sea and shore were so wild that small 
boats were dashed to pieces and twenty-two men 
of the landing-party drowned in the attempt. 



1 



MADNESS 47 

Wolfe was about to give it up as too foolhardy 
when he saw that one boat had succeeded in run- 
ning its prow aground. Leaping into the surf, 
he hurried ashore, demanded who had been first 
to land, gave a guinea to each of the two tall 
Highlanders pointed out to him, and, armed with 
only a slight stick, led the men now swarming 
after him, in an assault upon the nearest battery. 
After the affair was well over he admitted that 
it had been madness, which should have resulted 
in the death of all who followed him; but the 
French, overcome perhaps by such audacity, gave 
way. The English pursued them and captured 
other batteries, until the French feared their re- 
treat might be cut off, and fled into the city four 
miles distant, leaving cannon and fresh provisions 
behind them. It is hard to say which of these 
prizes was more joyfully seized by the soldiers 
just off their uncomfortable ships. 

The seven weeks' siege was carried on in a 
manner worthy of this spirited beginning. Gen- 
eral Amherst was sure to do the gallant thing in 
a proper way, and Wolfe, second in command, 
could be trusted to do the surprising thing in a 
gallant way. He had been a soldier since the 
age of thirteen, when, as a "remarkably ugly boy 
with a shock of red hair and a turned-up nose," he 
had enlisted. The one thing he could not stand 



; 



48 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

was inaction. ".There is no certainty where to 
find him," wrote a companion-in-arms, "but 
wherever he goes, he carries with him a mortar 
in one pocket and a 24-pounder in the other." 
In addition to his batteries which spouted shot 
from the most unlikely places, he had a pet body 
of light infantry trained to make sudden onsets 
where least expected and to retire as rapidly be- 
hind the sand dunes for shelter. One of his fel- 
low-officers said that such moves reminded him 
of a description of warriors in Xenophon, and 
Wolfe smilingly acknowledged his debt to the 
old Greek for the idea. 

Such generals gave the inhabitants of Louis- 
burg a lively time, "a good run for their money." 
Though it never relaxed, it was a war tempered 
with courtesy. General Drucourt rather sar- 
castically offered his enemies the services of a 
skilled physician, should they be needed. Am- 
herst replied by sending Mme. Drucourt, the 
"good angel" of Louisburg, a gift of West In- 
dian pineapples, and she returned the compliment 
with a case of excellent wine. 

When the buildings behind the French lines 
had become untenable and there was a breach in 
the walls of the fort, honorable terms of surren- 
der were offered and accepted, and more than five 
thousand prisoners were sent across the sea. But 



; 




GENERAL JAMES WOLFE 

In the National Portrait Gallery 



MADNESS 49 

the French general had served his country well by 
prolonging the siege until it was difficult for the 
English to decide upon their next move. Was 
there enough of the short Canadian summer left 
to warrant pushing on to Quebec? While Am- 
herst pondered this, Wolfe fumed. "We are 
gathering strawberries, with seeming indifference 
about what is doing in other parts of the world," 
he wrote bitterly. 

Then came news that Lord Abercrombie had 
been defeated in his attack on Ticonderoga, al- 
though it had been made with the largest army 
yet assembled in the war, six thousand British 
soldiers and nine thousand provincials under such 
leaders as Israel Putnam and Captain Stark, men 
who were to be heard from in years to come. It 
was a gallant and imposing army that on the fifth 
of June had sailed down Lake George toward Ti- 
conderoga where Montcalm commanded a gar- 
rison of only about one quarter as many men. 
These were hungry and ill-equipped, but they had 
unbounded faith in their general and worked with 
a will to make the most of their defenses, burning 
two bridges that the English must cross in order 
to get over the protecting swamp, and felling trees 
on the land side "for the distance of a musket- 
shot" from the fort, so that they lay with their 
trunks toward the fort and their limbs bristling 



50 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

outward. It was a woodman's device, not so 
cruel as the barbed-wire entanglements of to-day, 
but no mean obstruction. 

It was while scrambling through ravines and 
over fallen logs in the wake of guides who did 
not know their way that Lord Howe and Israel 
Putnam, who were in the lead, came suddenly 
upon a band of French skirmishers on July 6. 
Lord Howe, "the noblest Englishman . . . and 
best soldier in the army," fell at the first round. 
With his death all intelligence seemed to go out 
of the expedition. Two days later when the 
English appeared before the fort, they brought no 
artillery to clear a way through the maze of tree- 
tops, nor did they attempt to plant cannon on 
Mount Defiance, a near-by height from which 
they could have raked the fort. Instead, they 
marched straight upon the obstruction with or- 
ders to carry the place at the point of the bayonet. 
The French could not believe their eyes, and some 
four hundred of Sir William Johnson's Indians, 
who had climbed to the summit of Mt. Defiance, 
looked on with contempt as once every hour dur- 
ing the long summer afternoon the madmen re- 
peated the suicidal manceuver. Abercrombie, 
safe out of harm's way in a sawmill at the rear, 
sent the word to charge, and six separate times 
his men dashed forward. At sunset two thou- 



MADNESS 51 

sand lay dead, while he, and his unused artillery 
and the soldiers who remained alive, were in re- 
treat. Then the Indian allies of the French 
swarmed out to do their dreadful work. "A 
braver or more stupid conflict is not recorded on 
the pages of history." 

Stunned perhaps by his misfortune, Abercrom- 
bie retreated to the head of Lake George, where 
he remained until autumn and then returned to 
England to vote in Parliament against the colon- 
ists and to blame them for his failures. It was 
during this season of inaction that one of his 
gallant officers, named Bradstreet, obtained per- 
mission from a council of war, against the com- 
mander's will, to make a dash across Lake On- 
tario and capture Fort Frontenac, where supplies 
had been gathered for the French posts farther 
west. His easy success did much to revive the 
spirits of the army, and to impress the Canadian 
Indians, who were now beginning to waver in 
loyalty between the English and the French. By 
breaking the line of French posts also, this cap- 
ture made it so difficult for the French to hold 
Fort Duquesne that its -commander finally de- 
stroyed it. 

The news of disaster at Ticonderoga deter- 
mined Lord Amherst not to attack Quebec that 
year, but to go with part of his army to General 



52 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Abercrombie's assistance. So Wolfe, who was 
left behind, exchanged picking strawberries for 
a few weeks of unpleasant duty on the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence, "robbing fishermen of their nets," 
he called it, and was then allowed to return to 
England, where he arrived ill in body and much 
out of patience with American service. 



CHAPTER V 



T 



Valor gave them a united death" 



HERE is an old and not altogether decor- 



ous story called "America Ahead." Every 
schoolboy knows it and has his own opinion of its 
propriety; but our American part in Europe's 
Seven Years' War seems to bear out its truth. 
Fighting began on this side of the Atlantic two 
years before England officially entered the con- 
flict, and although the treaty of peace was not 
signed until 1763, the decisive battle, so far as 
our continent was concerned, was fought at Que- 
bec in the autumn of 1759. 

The taking of Louisburg and the loss of Fort 
Duquesne during the previous year had been a 
great blow to the French. Vaudreuil, the gov- 
ernor of Canada, and all his subordinates were 
corrupt, and each one helped himself from the 
money and supplies sent over for Montcalm's 
army. Montcalm protested, but was powerless 
to stop such thefts. His men were half starved, 
and the Indians, deprived of the feasts and pres- 
ents they had come to expect, showed an inclina- 
tion to go over to the enemy. Canadian settlers, 

53 



54 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

who had heretofore been deceived by the gov- 
ernor's boastful words, were suffering from poor 
crops and resented the heavy contribution they 
were expected to make from their harvests. 
They had found, moreover, that soldiers from 
France were not agreeable guests to have quar- 
tered in their little cabins close to their wives and 
pretty daughters. 

General Montcalm was an optimist by nature, 
but this was a state of things to make him des- 
perate. Hiding his apprehensions under a cloak 
of cheerfulness, however, he set about following 
the orders from France, which bade him confine 
military operations during the summer of 1759 
to posts so close together that they could assist 
each other. The English, on their part, encour- 
aged by recent success, planned an extensive 
campaign. It was agreed that General Stanwix, 
at a new fort named in his honor near Oswego, 
was to hold all the frontier between Fort Pitt and 
Lake Erie. William Johnson with his Indians 
and as many provincials as he could gather should 
advance upon Fort Niagara ; and Lord Amherst, 
now commander-in-chief in America, was to take 
the main army to Lake Champlain and wait his 
chance to push north up that water highway into 
Canada and unite with the force that was mean- 
while to sweep up the St. Lawrence to attack 



"A UNITED DEATH" 55 

Quebec. It was the old plan of former years. 
Those parts of it not yet accomplished were to be 
carried out, and the capture of Quebec was to 
crown the summer's work. 

English colonists responded loyally to demands 
for men and money, and the early stages of the 
campaign developed as planned. Fort Niagara 
was taken. The English put to flight a French 
force that had gathered to recapture Fort Pitt. 
Amherst sailed down Lake George with a 
splendid army against Fort Ticonderoga. The 
French had assembled a hundred cannon on an 
island in the River Richelieu and now held Ticon- 
deroga only as an outpost. After a skirmish they 
withdrew, first to Crown Point, later from Crown 
Point also. But for some reason Lord Amherst 
at this point became strangely slow and spent the 
rest of the summer building a costly fort at Ti- 
conderoga, letting the siege of Quebec go on with- 
out his help. 

It will be remembered that Wolfe had sailed 
back to England ill and out of patience. He felt 
little desire to return to America and small re- 
spect for colonial soldiers. They were lazy, he 
said, and good for little except scout duty. He 
hoped to regain his health and then rejoin his 
old regiment, which was fighting in Germany. 
He believed that his real place was in the cavalry, 



56 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

because, as he confided to a friend, Nature had 
given him "good eyes and a warmth of temper 
to follow the first impression." But rumor per- 
sisted that he was to be sent back. "It is my 
fortune to be cursed with American service," he 
wrote his old captain. 

One day William Pitt sent for him and gave 
him his orders. He must have left that inter- 
view with his head whirling. "I am to act a 
greater part in this business than I wish or de- 
sire," he informed his uncle ; but he kept his coun- 
sel as to exactly what "this business" was, even 
when offering positions in "a very hazardous en- 
terprise" to the army friends he hoped might ac- 
company him. Although he was only plain 
Colonel Wolfe and was to continue to hold that 
rank in England, in America he was to be major- 
general and, until Amherst joined him, to have 
supreme command on the St. Lawrence. This 
meant that, young as he was, — barely thirty-two, 
— he had been given entire charge of the attack 
on Quebec. He chose his officers to suit him- 
self, opposing even the king to get the men he 
wanted. Pitt, who had faith in the young man, 
advised the king to let him have his way, point- 
ing out sardonically that unless this were done, 
he could not be blamed for failure. Busy days 
followed, doubly busy for Wolfe, since he was 



"A UNITED DEATH" 57 

laying siege to a lady's heart as well as planning 
the capture of a city. Then he sailed away, 
happy in her promise and his new commission. 

Montcalm, meanwhile, gathered in and near 
Quebec virtually all the fighting force of Canada, 
sixteen or seventeen thousand men, exclusive of 
the Indians who could no longer be trusted. 

The town has naturally one of the strongest 
and most beautiful situations in the world, be- 
ing built on a three-hundred-foot bluff that juts 
into the St. Lawrence where the river sweeps 
round it in a great protecting curve. Guarded 
in this way on the south and west, and on the 
north by a smaller stream, the St. Charles, which 
enters the St. Lawrence, there is only one possible 
approach by land, and this from a direction the 
English could not reach. Art had done much to 
strengthen the natural defences. Batteries and 
mortars had been placed in position as far as Cap 
Rouge, eight miles distant, to guard the heights 
above the city. Down-stream the banks are low 
for a short distance, but rise again in bluffs at a 
point seven miles away where the falls of the 
Montmorency tumble from their height to mingle 
with the waters of the St. Lawrence. The low 
shores were defended by earthworks, the higher 
ground by ramparts. Thus the river bank was 
protected for a distance of fifteen miles. One 



58 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

hundred and six pieces of artillery guarded the 
town itself, which was built partly at the water's 
edge and partly on the bluff over which the cita- 
del loomed on still higher ground. The citadel 
was considered impregnable, and though Mont- 
calm knew that there was never a fort built which 
could stand against famine, he hoped to hold out 
until winter came to his assistance and drove the 
English home. 

In attacking such a place ships were of the first 
importance, and Wolfe had the invaluable assist- 
ance of that fine officer, Admiral Saunders, who 
was great enough to play his subordinate part 
without jealousy. The way his ships came up 
the difficult river channel was a revelation to the 
French. They considered the channel in itself 
no mean defence, and had, moreover, closed it 
with a chain. They thought the British sailors 
must be in league with demons to pay so little 
heed to the dangers of the course. 

It was on the twenty-sixth of June that the 
English fleet, bringing an army of about eight 
thousand men, came to anchor near the island of 
Orleans, a few miles below Quebec. In studying 
his problem from maps in London and on the 
way, Wolfe had come to the conclusion that he 
must find some means of getting behind the city 
and attacking from the land side; but a long 



"A UNITED DEATH" 59 

month of reconnoitering failed to reveal a single 
unguarded spot. Meantime there was no lack of 
thrills. He speedily took possession of Point 
Levis opposite the city, and though the upper 
town and the citadel were too high to be damaged 
by his guns, the lower town on the water's edge 
was quickly set on fire by red hot balls thrown into 
it from the fleet. The French on their part, hop- 
ing to damage the British ships, set adrift fire- 
boats and fire-rafts daubed with pitch and 
freighted with all manner of old guns, harque- 
buses, and cannon loaded to the muzzle with bul- 
lets and scraps of iron. While these were burst- 
ing and the night sky was lighted by flames, the 
plucky British tars grappled the blazing craft and 
pulled them ashore, or shoved them into the chan- 
nel where they would float harmlessly away. 
There were frequent encounters also, between 
small bands of Indians and soldiers near the Brit- 
ish camps. 

Then Admiral Saunders sent part of his Meet 
boldly past the citadel to take up its position 
above the town. This forced Montcalm to send 
more troops to guard the heights opposite which 
the British ships had anchored. Soldiers soon 
followed the ships, and though this in reality di- 
vided and weakened the English position, it dis- 
heartened the Canadians who could not under- 



60 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

stand that Montcalm was doing everything hu- 
manly possible. On the last day of July Wolfe 
lost four hundred and fifty brave men in a fool- 
hardy attempt against the French at the Falls of 
Montmorency. During the month he had lost 
altogether more than eight hundred men, for dis- 
ease was at work in his camps. In the almost 
daily skirmishes it seemed to the English that the 
Indians were growing more revoltingly Indian in 
their acts, and that Montcalm's strength was in- 
creasingly hourly. Canadian boys of fifteen and 
men of seventy fought sturdily beside the French 
soldiers. Wolfe could not know how much 
of this apparent enthusiasm was desperation. 
Montcalm's supplies were growing scarce; the 
line by which he received them was menaced by 
the English force above the city; and his fright- 
ened Canadian levies were already beginning to 
desert him. 

As time dragged on Wolfe made up his mind 
that Amherst was never coming and that he must 
take Quebec alone. He learned, too, about the 
French lack of provisions, and that Montcalm 
had felt it necessary to send a force of eight hun- 
dred to the assistance of Montreal, which he 
thought in danger of an attack from Amherst. 
Wolfe still preferred his original plan of landing 
somewhere below the town and attacking from 



"A UNITED DEATH" 61 

the rear, but anything was better than the inac- 
tion which had made him sick again in body 
and almost in mind. His officers agreed that this 
was the moment to strike. When they also 
agreed to a new plan he laid before them, his 
health and spirits revived. Turning his gift of 
keen eyesight to account, Wolfe had discovered in 
a little cove comparatively near the city the be- 
ginnings of a zigzag path that led upward over 
the cliffs. His plan was nothing less than a pro- 
posal to scale the precipitous wall of rock above 
Quebec and force a battle on the level land 
called the Plains of Abraham — that lay like a 
shelf between city and river. 

The French were well aware of increased Eng- 
lish activity, but interpreted it to mean that their 
enemies were about to take their departure. In- 
stead, as secretly as possible, Wolfe's main camp 
was being deserted, and troops and stores brought 
up-stream. When the French learned their mis- 
take they could not determine where their foes 
meant to strike, for Admiral Saunders played his 
part well and the English fleet passed up and 
down, taking many useless soundings and mak- 
ing false and ostentatious preparations to land. 
For almost a week before the great battle the 
French wore themselves out dashing from point 
to point to guard against surprise. 



62 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

The time set for the attempt was two o'clock 
on the morning of September 13, when the tide 
would turn and the boats could slip easily down- 
stream. Wolfe felt a strong presentiment that 
he would not survive the battle, and gave to a 
friend his sweetheart's miniature and a message 
to be delivered to her. But now that the time 
for action had come such forebodings had no 
effect on his courage or on the enthusiasm he in- 
stilled in his men as he went from boat to boat 
to see that everything was in order. 

Despite strict silence, the moving boats were 
discovered and hailed with sharp questions. 
The challenge was answered by a quick-witted 
Highlander in a way to mislead the French into 
believing them to be their own freight-boats 
bringing supplies. Then they slipped on again 
and the cove was reached; but grounding a little 
too soon, the vanguard had to make its way up 
without a path through darkness such as only 
those who have tried to walk in dense woods at 
night can imagine, over steeps that could only 
be scaled on hands and knees. Others found the 
path, but found it obstructed, and these barriers 
had to be cleared away. Admiral Saunders 
meanwhile thundered with his guns at an entirely 
different point, making a feint at landing that 
completely deceived the French. 



"A UNITED DEATH" 63 

Wolfe waited impatiently below for the signal 
which was to show that his men had reached the 
top. After an eternity it came; and dawn found 
a force variously estimated at from thirty-six 
hundred to five thousand safely on the Plains 
of Abraham, which they had so ardently longed 
to reach. With them were two cannon that they 
had managed to drag up the steep cliff. But they 
were in a position of great danger between two 
large bodies of French, Montcalm's main army on 
one hand and the force that had been guarding 
the heights toward Cap Rouge on the other. At 
their back was the precipice over which they had 
just climbed, while on the north the land de- 
scended precipitously to the St. Charles. They 
quickly chose the most advantageous point for 
defense, planted their precious cannon, and 
awaited the French attack. 

Montcalm had suspected nothing until he heard 
the firing of the outposts. Very like Wolfe in 
character, though older by a dozen years, he did 
not wait the return of messengers ; he threw him- 
self upon his horse and rode forward. As the 
red-coats met his vision another surprise con- 
fronted him ; part of his men refused to go where 
he ordered them, claiming that in self-defense 
they must guard against Admiral Saunders's at- 
tack. He might have waited for the troops from 



64 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Cap Rouge, but that would give the English time 
to entrench. The officers near him were eager, 
as he was, to attack without delay, and about ten 
o'clock he gave the order to advance. 

The British had been waiting since dawn. 
Such waiting is the severest test of courage and 
morale. It began to rain as the slow hours 
dragged on, each seeming a century long; but they 
stood the test as Wolfe's veterans should. "The 
men will remember what their country expects of 
them," he had reminded them in orders, and 
he moved among them exerting his magnetic 
power. Then they became aware that the French 
were approaching in an impetuous, irregular 
rush, meaning evidently to force them back over 
the precipice. Their two cannon opened fire, but 
the guns in the hands of the British infantry re- 
mained silent until a scant forty paces separated 
the combatants. Then at a quick word of com- 
mand three volleys were fired. Clouds of smoke 
rolled over the plain, and out of it came cries and 
groans. The French line was seen to waver; 
then it began to rush back as it had come. Wolfe 
gave the order to charge, and his men sprang 
eagerly forward. He had been wounded on the 
wrist and was struck again, but kept with them, 
paying no heed. He received a third wound, 
which he felt to be mortal, and quietly ordered 



"A UNITED DEATH" 65 

that he be carried to the rear, so that his soldiers 
should not be discouraged by seeing him fall. 
He refused medical aid, knowing it to be useless, 
and soon fell into a stupor from which the cry of 
those near him, — "They run! See how they 
run!" roused him to ask who ran. Assured that 
it was the French, and that they were giving way 
on all sides, he rallied long enough to give quick 
intelligent orders about cutting off the retreat, 
and then sank back, dying, he said, "happy." 

Montcalm also had been wounded and, like 
Wolfe, had paid no heed to his injury. He con- 
ducted the retreat clear to the city gate, and there, 
while holding his force to protect other flying rem- 
nants, he was struck a second time, some say by a 
shot fired by his own people. He was carried into 
the town and lived until the next day, calling his 
officers around him before he died, to tell them 
that they must rally the army and fight again to 
save New France. But it was not to be, and five 
days after the battle Quebec surrendered. 

The French general was buried in the chapel 
of the Ursuline convent, in a grave that had been 
partly dug by the explosion of an English shell. 
In after years a monument to the two com- 
manders was raised in the governor's garden. 
It bears on one side Wolfe's name and on the 
other that of Montcalm, with an inscription that 



66 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

reads : "Mortem virtus communem, famam his- 
toria, monument um posteritas dedit." ("Valor 
gave them a united death, history a united fame, 
posterity a united monument.") 

Although the Peace of Paris was not signed 
until 1763, the fall of Quebec marks the real pass- 
ing of French power from American soil. This 
French and Indian War happened long before we 
became a nation, but it had important bearings on 
our national life. Its opening years gave Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel George Washington his first train- 
ing in active military service. Its closing scenes 
swept the French from Canada. It had even 
greater influence, for it was during this time that 
the American colonies felt the first stirrings of 
resentment against English rule that finally led 
to the Declaration of Independence. 



PART II 

REVOLUTION 

A Fight for Nationality 



CHAPTER VI 

SMUGGLERS IN SELF-DEFENSE 

WHILE peace negotiations were in progress 
the fate of Canada hung in the balance, 
and it seemed possible that France might not be 
driven away after all. England had captured 
certain West Indian islands, and she appeared 
willing to give up her claims in the North, if only 
she might keep Guadeloupe and Martinique, 
which were very rich, if very small. Franklin 
and others protested however, and she was saved 
from stupidly throwing away with the pen the 
treasure she had won by the sword. 

England was much stronger than she had been 
at the beginning of the Seven Years' War, having 
gained not only Canada, but important territory 
in India as well. She now found herself in the 
position held by Spain when America was discov- 
ered and later occupied by France, that of the 
most powerful nation of Europe. Just as in the 
case of a person whose fortune has suddenly in- 
creased, she seemed almost forced to make 
changes in her way of living and of conducting 
her business. As a business proposition it ap j 

69 



yo THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

peared fitting that those colonial possessions of 
hers should be self-supporting; Parliament and 
the king's ministers began to try to make them 
so. They reasoned that the French and Indian 
War had been fought for the benefit of the col- 
onies, and that these ought to pay for it. Also, 
that in future they ought to pay a greater part 
of the cost of colonial government, not in the 
haphazard manner of former years, but through 
a direct tax collected by England. It is only fair 
to remember that England never proposed to 
raise money in America and spend it, elsewhere. 

But the colonists thought they had already paid 
their full share of the French and Indian War. 
They had taxed themselves heavily; they had 
furnished as many troops as England had sent 
over ; and these had fought as bravely. In addi- 
tion to this, the British troops had been fed and 
lodged without protest in American homes. As 
for the new way of managing their affairs, they 
objected to that also. They had never taken 
kindly to receiving orders. That was why Wolfe 
did not like our militia, and why General Mont- 
gomery, a few years later, complained that 
American privates were "all generals." They 
were quick to seize an idea, and could manage 
things with a dash in their own way, but that 
was a privilege which they valued highly. 



SMUGGLERS IN SELF-DEFENSE 71 

Massachusetts and Virginia, the richest of the 
colonies, already had one hundred and fifty years 
of purely American history behind them, and in 
this time they had developed a sturdy self-reliance 
without which the Revolution could not have been 
begun, much less carried on to victory. They 
agreed that Parliament had the right to make 
general laws for them; but they regarded ques- 
tions of taxation and of how much salary they 
should pay the men sent over from England to 
be colonial governors and judges as purely local 
matters. Such men might be good or bad; they 
considered it a great safeguard to hold the purse- 
strings, for this gave them some control over 
officers who might otherwise pay little heed to 
their wishes. 

They noticed also that the laws Parliament 
made were usually to their disadvantage. For 
instance, England had never taxed the colonies, 
but she had encouraged and even forced them to 
trade through her; and as she reaped the profit, 
this amounted in the end to the same thing. It 
had come about naturally enough. In the early 
years when they were weak and struggling they 
had not been able to send ships to the Orient for 
tea and spices, or even to France and Flanders 
for luxuries to be bought there. When they 
grew, and tried to do a little trading on their own 



72 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

account, or to start manufactures at home, this 
had been strictly forbidden. 

These restrictions were irksome even before 
the French and Indian War, but during the war 
mere questions of trade, and even stubbornness on 
the part of the colonists about raising and spend- 
ing their own money, had to give way to the need 
for soldiers. As soon as peace returned, such 
questions became more bothersome than ever. 
Remonstrances and petitions were unheeded. 
Indeed, Parliament seemed to go out of its way to 
make laws obnoxious to the colonists. Smug- 
gling became not only exceedingly profitable, but 
almost a matter of necessity, if merchants were 
to continue in business. Virtually everybody 
took a hand in it, sometimes even the colonial gov- 
ernors. Additional laws were made in order to 
stop smuggling, and the enforcement of these in- 
creased the hard feeling. "Writs of assistance," 
which gave customs officers authority to invade 
a man's dwelling by day and his ship or shop or 
cellar at any hour of the twenty-four, and to 
break open packages of all kinds in the search for 
contraband goods, were particularly unpopular. 

It was against such laws that James Otis and 
Samuel Adams of Massachusetts lifted their 
voices in eloquent protest. Yet for many years 
after this the colonists did not dream of separa- 



SMUGGLERS IN SELF-DEFENSE 73 

tion. Their grievance was not against England 
or the king, but against unjust treatment by Par- 
liament and the ministers in power. Probably 
even those who suffered most from such unjust 
laws and whose fathers and grandfathers had 
been born on American soil thought of England, 
with its green fields and clustering villages and 
gray old towers, very lovingly as "home," and 
were proud of the part their ancestors had 
played in making English history. 

As years passed and the situation grew worse 
instead of better, men began to cherish in their 
hearts a growing conviction that matters could 
not continue as they were. "Single acts of tyr- 
anny," wrote Jefferson, "may be ascribed to 
the accidental opinion of a day; but a series 
of oppressions . . . pursued unalterably through 
every change of ministers, too plainly prove a de- 
liberate and systematical plan of reducing us to 
slavery." Men began to think about rebellion, 
and some even to speak of it; and after that an 
ever-growing proportion seemed to feel that noth- 
ing short of independence could bring about the 
reforms they asked. 

Meetings of protest were called. Some of 
these turned into organizations of minute-men 
pledged to leave farm or business at a moment's 
notice and come armed and ready to defend their 



74 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

threatened liberty. Other meetings formed com- 
mittees of correspondence, which sent messengers 
and letters to far-away towns and colonies, urg- 
ing all to act together. These were a very great 
factor in bringing on the Revolution, because 
without some such means of united effort no 
amount of feeling could have accomplished any- 
thing. 

At first few men of wealth and position joined 
in such demonstrations. As is often the case, it 
was the men who had little to lose who were most 
willing to risk everything. Their rich neighbors 
were too cautious, and looked upon them as en- 
thusiasts who fortunately were unable to do much 
harm. Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, with 
his constantly nodding head, his red cloak, and 
his tie wig, was so morally incorruptible and had 
displayed such "conspicuous ineptitude for trade" 
that his wife was forced to practise all sorts of 
economies to keep the household clothed and fed. 
James Otis, that "great incendiary of New Eng- 
land" had been foolish enough to resign a fine 
position as advocate-general, because, forsooth, 
he felt himself too good to argue in favor of writs 
of assistance. James Warren, who had invented 
the committees of correspondence that were 
spreading discontent over the land, was Otis's 
brother-in-law, and he had a sister worse than he, 



SMUGGLERS IN SELF-DEFENSE 75 

a strong-minded woman who wrote books and 
presumed to teach men their duty. Benjamin 
Franklin had espoused the cause of the patriots, 
— but every one knew Franklin. His was the 
eccentricity of genius. As for Patrick Henry, 
who was pouring incendiary eloquence over the 
Virginia Assembly with his "Tarquin and Caesar 
had each his Brutus, Charles the First his Crom- 
well, and George the Third [cries of "Treason!"] 
may profit by their example ! If this be treason, 
make the most of it," he was a slovenly, fiddle- 
playing incompetent, with an odd gift of oratory, 
who had been slow at his studies and had failed 
twice at clerking and once as a farmer before 
he decided to practise law. This he had the as- 
surance to do after a paltry six weeks of prepara- 
tion. If the country had to choose between gov- 
ernment by such a rabble and government from 
England, conservative and well-to-do Tories pre- 
ferred the one three thousand miles away. 

The king, who was more stubborn than wise, 
took a personal interest in the quarrel. He and 
his ministers held that the British Government 
had a perfect right to tax the colonies when and 
how they chose. Otis and Adams and Warren 
and their friends contended that "Taxation with- 
out representation is tyranny," and that, since the 
colonies were not represented in Parliament, the 



76 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Government had no such right. They argued 
that because of the distance and other obstacles it 
was impossible for people living in America to 
be truly represented in London. The suspicion 
arises that they were not very eager for such rep- 
resentation, and that this question of not being 
represented in Parliament was the one point on 
which both sides were fully in accord. By this 
time the patriots really preferred independence, 
while the king's friends realized that if the col- 
onies were allowed representation and continued 
to grow as they had been growing of late, the hour 
would come when they would outnumber the rest 
of Parliament and make laws for England as well 
as for themselves. Neither side was quite frank 
or quite consistent. As a matter of theory, both 
could advance good arguments. In the colonies 
the arguments of the Americans gained in favor. 
By 1775 such men as Jefferson and Washington, 
Robert Livingston, Gouverneur Morris, and 
scores of others had added the prestige of their 
names and fortunes and inestimable personal 
service to the cause. But Washington did not 
give up hope of settlement by peaceful means un- 
til early in 1776. 

It never became a case of all the colonists 
united for independence against all England bent 
on putting down the rebellion. There continued 



SMUGGLERS IN SELF-DEFENSE 77 

to be a large party of Tories in America, in addi- 
tion to the thousands who emigrated to Canada 
or the West Indies. In England there was an 
influential minority that sided with the colonists. 
William Pitt was always their friend, and when 
it came to war, his son refused to take up arms 
against America. On the other hand, the son of 
that sturdy patriot Benjamin Franklin became 
the last royal governor of New Jersey, and one 
of its most malignant Tories. 



CHAPTER VII 

MOBS AND MOTIVES 

SOMEBODY has said that revolution is "es- 
sentially organized disorder." Our War of 
the Revolution undeniably began in rioting and 
mob violence over questions of taxation; but it 
speedily grew into something finer, to flower in 
the Declaration of Independence, and bear the 
fruit of nationality. It is not unusual for such 
changes to take place during the progress of a 
great war. Men do not die willingly for a trivial 
cause. 

Our final break with England came over a very 
small matter, a tax on tea so slight that it brought 
in virtually no revenue. Experiments in taxes of 
various kinds had been tried for years in the hope 
of finding some form to which the colonists would 
not object. Even the Stamp Act of 1765, which 
raised such an outcry, had not been intended as 
an insult. It was chosen merely as an easy and 
convenient way of raising money; and when the 
astonished English Government found that 
America objected to it with special fervor, it 
offered to substitute some other form, provided 

78 



MOBS AND MOTIVES 79 

the colonists could suggest one more acceptable 
to themselves. The Government seemed genu- 
inely anxious to please the colonists if it could but 
have its own way and maintain the principle for 
which it held out. But it was the principle to 
which the colonists objected. In 1770 taxes far 
more burdensome were removed, but this slight 
one on tea was kept, because, as a British law- 
maker observed, a peppercorn paid in acknowl- 
edgment of England's right to tax the colonists 
was worth more than millions without it. Amer- 
icans were furious. They formed societies called 
Sons of Liberty, a name, by the way, first given 
them by an advocate in Parliament. These Sons 
of Liberty pledged themselves to buy no British 
goods and to do everything in their power to re- 
sist England's evident desire to take away privi- 
leges they had long enjoyed. Pony expresses 
carried hot and angry messages between widely 
separated committees of correspondence, and the 
excitement grew until only a spark was needed to 
kindle a very large fire. 

The wonder is that the blaze was delayed so 
long. Five years passed before the battle of Lex- 
ington. But in truth it is hard to tell just when 
the Revolution began. Those five years were full 
of unrest, and assuredly the years before that had 
not been peaceful. It was in 1769 that James 



80 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Otis was attacked in a coffee-house, because of a 
political article he had printed, and so badly 
beaten over the head that he became insane. The 
next year a mob gathered to menace the store of 
some Boston merchants who were suspected of 
being friendly to the Government. English sol- 
diers appeared. They did not fire, but somebody 
else did, and the shot killed Christopher Snyder, 
a little boy of eleven. Great crowds attended his 
funeral and paraded silently through the streets, 
their ominous quiet being more eloquent than 
many curses. 

A week later the Boston Massacre occurred. 
It was a mere street brawl in numbers, and was 
begun by the citizens who annoyed a passing file 
of redcoats by pelting them with ice and snow. 
The soldiers lost patience and fired into the crowd, 
killing three or four and wounding others. In 
due time there was a trial, and two of the soldiers 
were convicted of manslaughter, branded, and 
set free again. But meanwhile, on the very day 
of the trouble, there was a mass-meeting, and 
Samuel Adams was made chairman of a commit- 
tee to demand that every soldier of the two regi- 
ments quartered in Boston be removed before 
sundown to Castle William, a fortified island out 
in the harbor. The authorities offered to com- 
promise by removing one regiment. Adams re- 



MOBS AND MOTIVES 81 

plied that if they could remove one they could and 
ought to remove both, and it was actually done. 
So the outcome was that the king's troops meekly 
took orders from the citizens of Boston, and Par- 
liament, although indignant, seemed afraid to in- 
terfere. This added not a little to the patriots' 
increasing sense of power. 

Next year troubles in the South culminated on 
May 10 in the battle of the Alamance, near the 
Cape Fear River in North Carolina, between more 
than a thousand English troops under Tryon, the 
cordially detested governor of the colony, and an 
equal number of patriots. Although these put 
up a gallant fight they were routed after a battle 
lasting two hours; their best lands were confis- 
cated, and an example was made by hanging 
seven of their most popular leaders, one of them 
on the spot "in chains, as an outlaw." 

There were minor encounters elsewhere, but 
the best known and most picturesque of all these 
technically lawless efforts to let the king see that 
his American subjects were very much in earnest 
was the famous Boston Tea-party of December 
1 6, 1773. By this time so much tea was smug- 
gled from Holland that even those who were un- 
willing to go without their favorite drink had 
no temptation to buy it from England. If they 
could not be forced to do this and pay the duty, 



82 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

the Government must own itself defeated. It 
tried to send over cargoes and sell them so 
cheaply that merchants could afford to pay the 
hated tax and still dispose of it for less than the 
smuggled article. This was adding insult to in- 
jury, for it amounted to the challenge that 
Americans cared more for their pocketbooks than 
for their principles. Mass-meetings were held in 
every port where such cargoes were expected, 
and different towns took different ways of meet- 
ing the situation. 

In Boston the ship was allowed to come to an- 
chor near Griffin's Wharf. After that it could 
not lawfully sail away again before unloading, 
without permission of the customs officers or a 
pass from the governor. Unless unloaded within 
twenty days officers could unload it by force, and 
the duty would have to be paid. The owner of 
the ship was quite willing to have it sail away 
again, and nineteen days slipped by in fruitless 
efforts to obtain the desired permission. On the 
twentieth day there was a great mass-meeting, 
and several thousand people who could find no 
room inside the Old South Church crowded the 
streets near by. The ship's owner was sent to 
make a last appeal to the governor, and the rest 
waited through the darkening afternoon. Night 
had fallen and candles had been lighted and 



MOBS AND MOTIVES 83 

brought in before he returned, unsuccessful, as 
had been foreseen. Then Samuel Adams rose in 
the dim church and, with real emotion trembling 
in his impressive voice, announced, "This meet- 
ing can do nothing more to save the country." 
His speech might have been a signal, so quickly 
-was it answered by shouts and cries, Indian war 
cries, as forty or fifty men dressed and painted 
like Mohawks sprang up from nobody knew where 
and rushed on board the ship to begin ripping 
open the chests and throwing their contents into 
the sea. Although the wharves were black with 
spectators, nobody could be found afterward to 
say who took part in the affair ; and this despite 
the fact that "next morning the shoes of at least 
one reputable citizen of Massachusetts were 
found by his family to be unaccountably full of 
tea." Samuel Adams was in church, as we know, 
and there is a tradition that the stairway in the 
house of John Hancock, a rich merchant, creaked 
that night under the tread of moccasined feet. 

It was plain that Massachusetts was the leader 
in all this disorder, and to punish her, Parliament 
passed what are known as the Intolerable Acts. 
It took away her charter and appointed a military 
governor; it closed the port of Boston in order 
that neither food nor goods should enter until the 
destroyed cargo had been paid for ; it ordered that 



84 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

men arrested for certain crimes should be sent 
to Halifax or England for trial, where public 
opinion would presumably be against them; it 
directed that soldiers might be quartered wher- 
ever the military authorities chose, regardless of 
protests. There was a fifth law that raised great 
opposition though it was not directed against 
Massachusetts. It permitted the free exercise of 
the Catholic religion in large parts of Canada. 

The order closing the port of Boston went into 
effect on the first of June, 1774, so thoroughly that 
not a rowboat was allowed to land with provi- 
sions. It caused great inconvenience, but the in- 
habitants did not starve, for public sentiment was 
with them. The other colonies observed the day 
as a solemn fast, and food and money and equally 
precious messages of sympathy were sent from 
far and near. The fishermen of Marblehead 
drove cartloads of their dried fish by roundabout 
ways over many miles of rutty roads. Rice came 
from Carolina, and Washington wrote from Vir- 
ginia, "If need be, I will raise one thousand men, 
subsist them at my own expense, and march my- 
self to the relief of Boston." He had inherited 
property that made him one of the richest men 
in America, and this from him was no idle boast. 

General Gage ruled as military governor of 
Boston, where red-coated soldiers once more 



MOBS AND MOTIVES 85 

lounged at will. Gage was a mild-mannered 
man, well enough liked and well known, for he 
had commanded the king's troops in America for 
years. He believed that the best way "to increase 
the trouble would be to make martyrs of the un- 
ruly colonists, who were, he felt sure, in the 
minority. Boston received him with personal re- 
spect, but he was astonished to find how little at- 
tention was paid to him or his soldiers outside of 
the city. The people of Massachusetts ignored 
the new courts that he tried to organize and took 
their orders from a dignified but totally unau- 
thorized provincial assembly that they elected 
themselves. 

While it had been the part of prudence not to 
inquire too closely into the work of those "In- 
dians" who turned the waters of Boston Harbor 
into brackish tea, since that, after all, was little 
more than a college prank, this was real rebel- 
lion. Gage had assured the home Government 
that four regiments ought to end the matter, since 
at the first show of force the colonists would "un- 
doubtedly prove very meek." Now he asked for 
more soldiers and in September he began to 
fortify Boston Neck, the narrow strip of land 
connecting the town with the mainland; but he 
did as little as possible in the circumstances to 
rouse popular ill-will. Before winter was over, 



86 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

however, things reached a pass where he felt 
obliged to take some notice of the fact that Sam- 
uel Adams and John Hancock were preaching 
rank treason, and that the Massachusetts Assem- 
bly was encouraging warlike preparations. 

In April he learned that the patriots had stored 
a considerable quantity of ammunition at Con- 
cord, about six hours' march away. He deter- 
mined to seize and destroy this, and on the night 
of April 1 8, 1775, he sent eight hundred men on 
this errand, with orders to stop as they passed 
through Lexington and arrest Adams and Han- 
cock, who were not only preaching sedition, but 
had recently been chosen delegates to the rebel- 
lious Continental Congress soon to meet in Phila- 
delphia. 

Pickets were carefully posted in order that 
news of the little expedition should not get 
abroad, but before the soldiers were out of Boston 
a light appeared high in the belfry of the Old 
North Church. A moment later another shone 
beside it, and men on the lookout for just such a 
signal knew not only that the troops were afoot, 
but the route they were to take. Two of the 
watchers sprang upon waiting horses and gal- 
loped away to rouse the minute-men. Paul Re- 
vere was challenged by a sentry, but his horse 
bounded forward and took him out of harm's 



MOBS AND MOTIVES 87 

way. Then, as Longfellow tells the story, there 
was: 

"A hurry of hoofs in a village street, 

A shape in the moonlight ; a bulk in the dark; 

And beneath from the pebbles in passing, a spark struck 

out by a steed . . . 
That was all 1 And yet, through the gloom and the light, 
[The fate of a nation was riding that night." 

Lexington was warned in time, and Adams 
and Hancock dressed and slipped quietly away 
through the fields. Fortunately, the two riders 
were joined by a third as they galloped on toward 
Concord, for suddenly they came face to face with 
a group of British officers. The new-comer man- 
aged to dart over a wall and escape, but the oth- 
ers were halted and questioned at the point of the 
pistol. Just as matters became most critical for 
them, a church bell pealed, then another and an- 
other, until the officers became fearful of capture 
in their turn and fled, leaving the prisoners to 
their own devices. 

[The alarm had reached Lexington so far in 
advance of the British and the response came so 
promptly that, after waiting through the chill of 
the small hours, the one hundred and thirty min- 
ute-men who had assembled on the village green 
were dismissed to rest. When the sound of a 
drum called them together again at dawn about 



88 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

sixty appeared, one third of them without arms. 
Their leader, Captain Parker, sent them into the 
meeting-house for guns, — only in colonial New 
England would the weapons have been kept in 
such a place, — while he led the rest to the end of 
the green where he formed them to await the 
king's soldiers, forty against eight hundred. But 
the main body of British troops passed on toward 
Concord without casting a glance in their direc- 
tion. Only one company wheeled out of line to 
attend to them. 

They made rather a pitiful array, and Major 
Pitcairn probably thought them hardly worth an 
oath, let alone powder and shot, as he halted his 
regulars within fifty feet of them and, calling 
them rebels, ordered them to lay down their arms. 
They showed no will to do this, and his next order, 
addressed to his men, was, "Fire!" Only a few 
obeyed. Perhaps it looked, even to soldiers, too 
much like murder. But the ragged line still 
stood defiant, and there came a raking volley 
which left seven dead and nine wounded. The 
remainder of the forty turned and ran, and the 
soldiers, mocking and jeering, swept on toward 
Concord. It was not much of a battle either in 
numbers or time, but as our orators love to tell us, 
that shot fired at Lexington was heard round the 
world. 



MOBS AND MOTIVES 89 

When the British reached Concord about seven 
o'clock of the spring morning they found that two 
hundred minute-men gathered to defend the town 
had taken up their position on the hills across the 
river, carrying most of the hoarded ammunition 
with them. The British helped themselves to the 
little that remained and hunted up and down the 
valley an hour or so looking for more; but they 
had orders to respect private property, and did 
small damage beside destroying the liberty-pole 
and setting fire to the court-house. The smoke 
rising from this served as a beacon to scores and 
hundreds of minute-men who were on their way 
and now began to pour in from every side. Em- 
boldened by such reinforcements, their comrades 
on the hill descended to the attack. The British 
tried to take up the planks of the bridge to pre- 
vent their crossing, and the bridge itself became 
the center of a hot combat at the end of which 
two of the king's soldiers lay dead. It was all 
over in two or three minutes, then the British 
turned homeward. English and some American 
historians claim that they did this voluntar- 
ily, and it seems impossible to believe that eight 
hundred British regulars could have been routed 
so easily by untrained farmers. Presumably the 
soldiers were obeying their orders not to "rouse" 
the country-side. 



90 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

The patriots drew their own very natural con- 
clusions, however, and hurried after them jubi- 
lant with victory. They took aim in the deadly 
American way learned from woods and Indians, 
firing from behind trees and bushes. Rarely 
more than ten could be seen at one time ; yet the 
band of pursuers continued to grow, and as the 
ammunition of one minute-man gave out, there 
were two ready to take his place. Thus the run- 
ning fight continued, the English turning occa- 
sionally to fire a volley at their almost invisible 
foes, then pushing ahead, leaving their dead be- 
hind and encumbered by an increasing number of 
wounded. At Lexington they were gladdened by 
the sight of twelve hundred of their comrades 
under Lord Percy coming to their assistance. 
[These formed a hollow square, in the shelter of 
which the fagged and tired men dropped down 
to rest, "their tongues hanging out of their 
mouths like those of dogs after a chase." Even 
this reinforcement did not deter the elated pa- 
triots, and at the end of a short half hour it was 
deemed best to arouse the fugitives, and the Brit- 
ish continued on their troubled way toward Bos- 
ton. It was after sunset when at last they were 
ferried across the water to safety. 

At Lexington and Concord, where the losses 



MOBS AND MOTIVES 91 

had been very small, the Americans suffered quite 
as much as their enemy, but in the course of the 
afternoon they lost only one third as many as the 
British, whose casualty list mounted up to two 
hundred and seventy-three, more than the number 
killed and wounded in the assault upon Quebec 
when Wolfe fell. The rebels were only Ameri- 
can farmers, without ammunition, with very little 
equipment, and absolutely no discipline; but they 
had won the first point in the war. 

Having come thus far with increasing excite- 
ment and success, they now sat down to the siege 
of Boston. Although "an army of generals," 
such as Montgomery scoffed at, most of these 
plain farmers were as intelligent as generals, and 
all realized the gravity of the step they were tak- 
ing. As Franklin expressed it later, if they did 
not all hang together, the chances were that they 
would hang separately. Even with the elation of 
victory upon them and while their neighbors were 
flocking to join them, they achieved a rude sort 
of military organization; and before forty-eight 
hours had passed, Boston was, actually, in a state 
of siege. The news spread through the country, 
and still more and more patriots left farms and 
business until the king's regiments in Boston were 
ringed around by twenty thousand men. It was 



92 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

a humiliating position for General Gage, but he 
knew that reinforcements were on their way, and 
deemed it prudent to await their coming quietly. 



CHAPTER VIII 

REAL WAR, AND A REAL GENERAL 

THIS was the situation when the Second Con- 
tinental Congress came together on the 
tenth of May, 1775. The First Continental Con- 
gress had already met in the previous autumn to 
"consider the Union of Great Britain and the col- 
onies on a constitutional foundation." This one 
found far different matters to occupy it. Before 
it had been sitting a week it advised all those col- 
onies that had not yet done so to form new gov- 
ernments, because the king had "withdrawn his 
protection" from the people. One by one it took 
over the powers England had previously exer- 
cised. One after another the royal governors 
were driven from office, and though two of them 
tried unsuccessfully to exercise their authority 
from the decks of British ships, before the end of 
the year every one of the thirteen colonial gov- 
ernments had been overthrown. 

Yet all the while there was a faction in Con- 
gress urging prudence. On the eighth of July, 
1775, it persuaded that body to send a last "olive 
branch" petition to the king, the delegates sign- 

93 



94 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

ing it not as members of a revolutionary con- 
gress, but as bis loyal and faithful subjects. 
This was eighty days after Lexington had been 
fought, and three weeks after the battle of Bun- 
ker Hill. There is humor in the notion that they 
could still hope to be considered faithful subjects 
after things had gone as far as this. There is 
pathos, too, for it shows how hard it was to re- 
nounce the old allegiance. 

It was a year later, the fourth of the following 
July, before the American Declaration of Inde- 
pendence put the issue squarely before the people 
and compelled those still wavering to make their 
final choice. Congress was so evenly divided for 
and against the declaration that it had been post- 
poned when debated earlier for fear the vote 
would not be in its favor. When the vote was 
finally taken, there was more anxiety than enthu- 
siasm, and the great declaration had only an ac- 
tual majority of one, if individual men and not 
states are considered. A crowd waited outside 
while the ballot was being taken. The time 
seemed endless. A small boy had been stationed 
where he could signal the result to the bellman up 
in Independence Hall. It seemed that the signal 
would never come. The man craned his neck to 
see if the boy had deserted his post. The boy 
wondered if the men inside could be sleeping. 



A REAL GENERAL 95 

Then the old Liberty Bell rang forth its message, 
which was answered by other bells from end to 
end of the land, to be greeted with cheers or 
tears or tightened lips as the case might be. In 
New York a joyous mob gathered around the 
leaden statue of King George the Third, burned 
the royal emblems, and pulled down the statue to 
be melted into bullets. 

One of the first things the new Congress 
learned was that Ethan Allen, that man of blus- 
tering energy who had fought in the French and 
Indian War and had since been outlawed for op- 
posing New York's claim to land that afterward 
became Vermont, had hastened to enter this new 
quarrel. It was at dawn on May 10, some hours 
before the Second Continental Congress actually 
came into being, that Allen, with a certain Bene- 
dict Arnold and a mere handful of Green Moun- 
tain Boys around him, had thundered at the gate 
of Fort Ticonderoga and, rousing an unsuspect- 
ing British officer from his slumbers, had de- 
manded the surrender of the imposing fortress 
"in the name of the great Jehovah and the Conti- 
nental Congress." 

The commander, only half awake, dazed at the 
sudden call, and unable to comprehend the colos- 
sal bluff, had complied. 

It is safe to hazard the guess that Congress 



96 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

found itself somewhat embarrassed by the gift, 
not knowing as yet how far in rebellion its mem- 
bers were prepared to go. They went far when 
they elected John Hancock, the man with a halter 
round his neck, as their presiding officer, and far- 
ther still when Congress took upon itself, in be- 
half of the United Colonies of America, respon- 
sibility for the patriot army besieging General 
Gage. So little provision had been made before- 
hand, either for employing an army or running 
a government, that one of the first things Con- 
gress had to do was to borrow six thousand 
pounds with which to buy gunpowder. 

It was indeed an audacious thing that it had 
undertaken, nothing less than to dispute posses- 
sion of the continent of North America with the 
strongest power of Europe. It was true that the 
colonies had increased by this time from half a 
dozen pathetic settlements to thirteen energetic 
states, with a total population of three million. 
But three million persons are not very many to 
scatter in groups through primeval forests from 
the region of Maine down to northern Florida. 
We can imagine the emptiness of the same region 
if swept of all inhabitants except those now gath- 
ered in New York City. But Congress came 
of the same race as the strongest nation of Eu- 




ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

From a painting- by Trumbull, 1792. Now owned by the Chamber of Commerce, N. Y. 



A REAL GENERAL 97 

rope and, once decided, set about its task with no 
thought of failure. 

Gradually its besieging army changed a little in 
character. The minute-men who had answered 
the first summons returned to their homes, their 
places being taken by bands of militia, equally un- 
trained, but enlisted for definite, if short, periods 
of service. A great deal of confusion resulted, 
because each state had its own laws for enrolling 
men, so that there were at least thirteen difTerent 
ways of getting them into the service and to the 
scene of action. Although Congress had adopted 
the hastily gathered swarm of defenders as its 
own, there was jealousy of any central military 
authority both in Congress and out. It might 
have gone hard with the patriot cause in those 
days if the British generals had been men of 
vigor, but Gage was not a man of vigor ; when re- 
inforcements arrived late in May, raising the 
number of British in Boston to ten thousand, the 
command was given to William Howe, who had 
led the assault at Bunker Hill. He was an excel- 
lent officer, but too fond of the pleasures of the 
table, and as friendly at heart to America as Gage 
himself. Division of counsel on the one hand 
was offset, therefore, by inertia on the other. 

But even divided counsels could agree upon 



98 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

the wisdom of fortifying Charlestown Heights, 
looking down on Boston. The English detected 
signs of activity in the American camp, and Gen- 
eral Gage made a first move, on paper, to check it, 
by issuing a proclamation that threatened "death 
by the cord as rebels and traitors" to all persons 
caught with arms in their hands, but promised 
amnesty to those who repented, Samuel Adams 
and John Hancock alone excepted. 

The answer to this was a force of twelve hun- 
dred men drawn up on Cambridge Common on the 
night of June 15. Dr. Langdon, the president of 
Harvard, lifted his hands toward the stars and 
asked the blessing of God upon their enterprise, 
and when the prayer was ended, they marched 
away in silence. The committee of safety had 
given orders to fortify Bunker Hill; but either 
through a mistake or because of the independence 
so characteristic of that citizen soldiery, Colonel 
Prescott, the commander, decided that Breed's 
Hill was the better place and set his men to dig- 
ging there. The first spadeful of earth was not 
turned until midnight, but dawn showed the re- 
doubts half finished. Then General Israel Put- 
nam arrived with more men and, interpreting his 
orders literally, occupied Bunker Hill. Discover- 
ing what was going on, the British placed some 
cannon in the old burying-ground on Copp's Hill, 



A REAL GENERAL 99 

where Increase and Cotton Mather and other 
worthies of Boston's early days sleep their last 
sleep, and moved two of their ships within firing 
range of the patriots, who went on industriously 
raising their walls of earth. 

On the afternoon of June 17 twenty-five hun- 
dred British soldiers were ferried across the wa- 
ter under cover of lively firing from cannon on 
ships and shore, landed for an attack, formed at 
the foot of Breed's Hill, and rushed straight up 
with magnificent and fatal assurance. They ex- 
pected the American "peasants" to break and run, 
but these stood firm, not even firing at the oncom- 
ing enemy, who shot too soon and fired too high as 
they advanced. America's divided counsels had 
agreed on another thing, that ammunition was 
scarce, and that an ample supply encouraged 
wastefulness. Scarcely three rounds had been 
dealt out, and the men had been told that every 
bullet ought to bring down its man. They were 
good enough marksmen to take the admonition to 
heart and waited, as the English had done at 
Quebec, until their enemies were almost upon 
them. Then they fired a deadly volley, the unex- 
pected precision of which caused the advancing 
line to waver and fall back. Fifteen minutes 
later it advanced again most gallantly. This 
time the Americans waited until the British were 



ioo THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

even nearer before pouring forth another volley. 
Once more the British recoiled before the deadly 
marksmanship. But when they advanced a third 
time, the patriots had scarcely half a round left. 
They used that with telling effect ; then, clubbing 
their muskets, for they had few bayonets among 
them, fought as best they could, hand to hand. 
"Nothing," wrote a British officer, "could be more 
shocking than the carnage that followed. . . . 
We tumbled over the dead to get at the living." 
Little by little, retreating in good order, the 
Americans were forced back from Breed's Hill 
over Bunker Hill and on toward Prospect Hill 
near Cambridge, where they intrenched to await 
another British attack; but the soldiers of the 
king had had enough, and it never came. 

Technically the battle was a victory for the 
British since they had dislodged their enemy and 
captured five of his six guns. Historically it 
ranks as a great American triumph. The army 
of farmers had caused the best of England's sol- 
diers to reel before it, and though it lost four hun- 
dred and fifty men, the British loss was much 
heavier, being something over one thousand, of 
which more than one hundred were officers. In 
General Gage's report of the battle he paid tribute 
to the "military spirit" and "uncommon zeal and 
enthusiasm" of his enemies, and wrote: "The 



A REAL GENERAL 101 

success, which was very necessary in our present 
condition, cost us dear. . . . The trials we have 
had show the rebels are not the despicable rabble 
too many have supposed them to be . . . The con- 
quest of this country is not easy ; you have to cope 
with vast numbers. In all their wars against the 
French they never showed so much conduct, at- 
tention and perseverance as they do now." 

A day or two before this first full-sized bat- 
tle of the Revolution the Continental Congress 
did the truly vital thing of its career. It voted 
unanimously to make "George Washington, Esq. 
of Virginia" commander of its adopted army and, 
in doing so, gave the cause a real general, who 
ranks with the great commanders of the world. 
In his speech of thanks to Congress he declared 
that he did not think himself equal to the task. 
In writing the great news to his wife, he told 
her that "so far from seeking this appointment, 
I have used every endeavor in my power to 
avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part 
with you and the family, but from the conscious- 
ness of its being a trust too great for my ability." 
This was his modest judgment of himself. The 
judgment of history is that "so far as it can be 
true that any one man ever did win a war, George 
Washington won the Revolution single-handed." 

We are so sure of the debt we owe him that it 



102 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

is startling to learn that his selection did not de- 
pend upon fitness so much as upon the accident 
that he was not born in New England. New 
England and especially Massachusetts had led in 
the movement for freedom ; but New England and 
the other colonies were not always in accord. At 
this critical moment concert of action was needed 
most of all. It would be suicidal to let the revolt 
so brilliantly begun dwindle into a sectional quar- 
rel, New England against the rest of America 
as well as against Old England across the sea. 

Virginia had been nearly as active in the cause, 
Patrick Henry's eloquence, Washington's fair- 
mindedness, Jefferson's versatile talents, even the 
unusual mental powers of James Monroe, a boy 
just out of college, rendering the sayings and ex- 
ample of her patriots noteworthy. Astute New 
Englanders in Congress were wise enough to 
hush the claims of members of their own section, 
like "King" Hancock, who felt sure he was born 
for military glory, and to make Washington com- 
mander, in order to attach the South firmly to the 
cause and give the rebellion a more national char- 
acter. 

It was a cousin of Samuel Adams, John 
Adams, who made the original motion. Wash- 
ington was free enough from conceit and enough 
of a politician himself to understand. He 



A REAL GENERAL 103 

thought the choice was due to "the partiality of 
Congress, joined to a political motive." He ac- 
cepted the task like a good soldier, though with 
a heavy sense of the difficulties before him. 
L The welcome he received as he journeyed north- 
ward might have turned a wise head ; but louder 
than the applause must have been the question in 
his own mind of how he could fulfil his task, not 
alone the military task of winning victories, but 
the more difficult feat of handling his army so as 
to please all sections, the South, the middle col- 
onies, and New England in love with liberty, but 
intolerant of ways not her own. 

As he stood under the historic elm on Cam- 
bridge Common on July 3, 1775, to assume com- 
mand, these thoughts must have been lost for 
the moment in the greater wonder of how he 
was ever going to make a trained army out of the 
ragged material before him. It was excellent 
stuff; the world has never seen better, but it was 
very raw and disorganized. It besieged Gen- 
eral Howe in a semicircle nine miles long, stretch- 
ing from Dorchester to Maiden. Some of the 
men were lodged in dwelling-houses, some in 
tents, some in makeshift hovels contrived out of 
everything and anything from old sails to rushes 
woven basket-fashion into semblance of a shelter. 
Although they had come full of enthusiasm, they 



104 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

were enlisted for a few weeks only and, unless 
they reenlisted, would melt away again to their 
homes before his training could have any effect. 
Many of the officers who later gained distin- 
guished honor and some who became notorious 
were already on hand, but he had yet to know 
them and to study their characters. To crown 
all, supplies of every kind were scarce, when not 
absolutely lacking. Surely it was a task to try a 
man's highest power. 

Had England been alive to her opportunity, the 
rebellion might have ended just there, by the dis- 
persal of this enthusiastic rabble, the confiscation 
of estates and fortunes, and the tragic end of a 
few leaders. 

Fortunately, it took England two years to real- 
ize the seriousness of the Revolution, and by that 
time her opportunity was gone. 

Little by little as summer merged into autumn 
and autumn passed into winter, Washington es- 
tablished something approaching order and a mili- 
tary standard in his force. Drill was hard and 
frequent, discipline stern and enforced with the 
lash. The officers worked under the commander- 
in-chief as they had never worked before. He 
drew his lines tighter and still a little tighter 
around the English regiments. He augmented 
his scanty supply of artillery by laboriously drag- 



A REAL GENERAL 105 

ging cannon all the way from Ticonderoga over 
the snow; and one day in March, Howe found 
that the Americans were occupying Dorchester 
Heights, which overlooked the city, and knew that 
he must either attack again as he had done at 
Bunker Hill or be shelled out of his position. 
While wavering between flight and fight, a storm 
came up and disarranged the partial plans made 
for an attack, and he let it become known to 
Washington that if allowed to depart unmolested 
he would sail with his force for Halifax. This 
he did on March 17, taking with him not only his 
army, but about a thousand citizens of Tory sym- 
pathies who preferred to seek new homes rather 
than occupy their old ones under patriot rule. 

So far the English soldiers had won every bat- 
tle with the Americans, but Lexington, Concord, 
and Bunker Hill proved barren victories. Some- 
thing was strangely wrong. Mathematics upheld 
them, and common sense applauded when they 
reasoned that this was a revolt not to be taken too 
seriously. It must be put down, of course, but 
put down in a manner so gentle that there would 
be no hard feelings between conquered and con- 
querors after it was over. It was for this reason 
that General Gage had tried not to "rouse" the 
country when he sent to take the ammunition at 
Concord, and that Admiral Howe, coming in 



io6 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

command of British ships, was empowered to 
treat with the rebels as well as to fight them. He 
actually held a conference with three members of 
the Continental Congress, Benjamin Franklin, 
John Adams, and Edward Rutledge, in Septem- 
ber, 1776, with no result, as can be imagined. 

At first General Gage had estimated that four 
regiments would be ample to quell the disturb- 
ance. Then he sent for reinforcements. When 
it was decided to send them and a new commander 
with them, General Amherst had been offered 
the assignment. But Amherst, remembering his 
former luck in America, refused unless he could 
be assured of a force of twenty thousand men. 
William Howe, twelve years his junior, was will- 
ing to try with half that number, though he, too, 
had vivid American memories. It was his elder 
brother, Lord Howe, who fell before Ticonder- 
oga in the French and Indian War. His naval 
brother, "Black Dick," had also served in that 
war under Boscawen at the taking of Louisburg, 
and William Howe himself had been in the 
party that clambered up from Wolfe's Cove to the 
Plains of Abraham. 

After he sailed away from Boston to Halifax 
William Howe reported that a total of fifty thou- 
sand men would be needed to end the rebellion: 
ten thousand for New England, twenty thousand 



A REAL GENERAL 107 

for the middle section, ten thousand for the South, 
and ten thousand to oppose General Washington's 
army. The English ministry, still confident that 
the American forces did not number ten thousand 
men all told, and that these were without equip- 
ment and likely to go home at any moment, re- 
fused to believe him. In thus misjudging the 
forces with which she had to deal, England made 
the grave mistake of reasoning from physical 
facts alone, without taking into account the spirit 
that animated the patriots. 



CHAPTER IX 

will-o'-the-wisp soldiers 

A WRITER on the science of war asserts 
that geography is responsible for three- 
fourths of military history. The British had not 
lost sight of geography in planning their cam- 
paigns. They knew that both geography and 
self-interest divided the colonies into distinct 
groups. There was New England, lying to the 
north and east of the Hudson River. Its business 
centered chiefly in fishing and in shipping the fish 
it caught. Next came the middle colonies be- 
tween the Hudson and Potomac rivers. These 
were interested in general agriculture, and there 
was a stronger Tory sentiment here than else- 
where. In the Southern group, extending from 
the Potomac down to the Spanish province of 
Florida, tobacco-growing was the chief source 
of wealth. All professed themselves eager for 
liberty, but each wanted things for which the 
others cared not at all. England was sure they 
would soon fall to quarreling among themselves. 
Even with perfect harmony among them, dis- 
tances were so great and roads so bad that it 

108 



WILL-O'-THE-WISP SOLDIERS 109 

would require two months to send a force over- 
land from Massachusetts to the help of Georgia, 
and England's strong navy could see that it never 
got there by water. Clearly the thing to do was 
to take advantage of such divisions and increase 
them as much as possible. 

New England had been the greatest offender; 
so it was natural to begin with New England. 
Because Massachusetts was the chief instigator 
of rebellion and Boston the chief city of New 
England, the British had occupied Boston. But 
it did not work out as planned. Bunker Hill 
gave the American fight for liberty a new and un- 
expected dignity in the eyes of the world, and the 
departure of General Howe from Boston brought 
the first period of the Revolutionary War to a 
close. 

Counting from the fight at Lexington to the 
surrender of Lord Cornwallis, the war lasted 
seven years and six months, and this time falls 
into three great divisions. First came the at- 
tempt to punish New England. Next, England 
tried to gain possession of New York, where Tory 
sentiment was strong. This was to be done by 
the double means of occupying New York City 
and sending an expedition down from Canada 
by the old route of the St. Lawrence, Lake Cham- 
plain, and the Hudson River. When these two 



no THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

expeditions met, the proposed confederacy of 
thirteen States would be cut in two in the middle, 
after which each half could be dealt with sepa- 
rately. This second period of the war lasted 
about two years. Then the field of activity was 
transferred to the South, in an endeavor to con- 
quer the Southern States in turn, beginning with 
Georgia and working northward. Meanwhile, 
the British and American forces in the North set- 
tled down to a test of endurance, each side trying 
to tire out its adversary. A few less important 
campaigns went on simultaneously elsewhere, 
but they were secondary to these main movements 
of the struggle. 

For instance, during the time that Washington 
was holding Howe prisoner in Boston, an attempt 
was made by the Americans to invade Canada, 
and Montreal was actually captured by General 
Montgomery, who sailed with three thousand 
men down Lake Champlain in the Indian sum- 
mer, while its shores were aglow with autumn 
colors. Benedict Arnold and Daniel Morgan of 
Virginia, a giant in body and a marvel of daring, 
meanwhile led another force of twelve hundred 
through the tangle of Maine woods to attack 
Quebec. But their march was so difficult that 
two hundred men perished by starvation and 
drowning; others turned back, and only seven 



WILL-O'-THE-WISP SOLDIERS ill 

hundred pushed through to appear before the city 
after winter had set in. Montgomery joined 
them; but the British commander, General Carle- 
ton, secure in his defenses, remembered Mont- 
calm's fatal error and refused to come out and 
give battle. It was December ; Montgomery had 
no siege guns. Pneumonia and smallpox were 
doing their work, and the term for which his New 
England troops had enlisted ended with the old 
year. He must act quickly if at all, and desperate 
as the outlook seemed, it was decided to take the 
place by assault. At 2 a. m. on the thirty-first of 
December the attack was begun in a fall of snow 
so dense as to confuse and mislead every one, and 
to make it almost impossible for the Americans to 
distinguish the piece of white paper that each had 
stuck in his cap as a means of telling friend from 
foe. The first barrier was quickly taken, but the 
attempt ended, as such foolhardy attempts almost 
invariably do end, in disaster. Montgomery was 
killed, Arnold was wounded, and Morgan taken 
prisoner. If Fate had only allowed Montgom- 
ery and Arnold to change places, and if the slen- 
der aide who caught Montgomery's body as it 
fell could also have found an honorable death on 
that icy morning, American history would be the 
brighter : for Arnold lived to turn traitor, and the 
name of the young aide was Aaron Burr. In 



112 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

the spring General Carleton recaptured Montreal, 
and little by little the Americans were driven back 
until they lost all that had been gained. 

From beginning to end of the Revolution there 
was a great difference in the quality of the oppos- 
ing armies; not in personal bravery or in en- 
durance so much as in their ways of doing things 
and in their habits of mind. Indians were em- 
ployed by both sides in operations along the West- 
ern frontier, but the practice was already begin- 
ning to be looked upon with disfavor and the Rev- 
olution was fought mainly by white men, though 
men of diverse appearance and race. Almost 
from the first the patriots had the help of individ- 
ual French officers like Lafayette, who came 
across the seas to join heart and soul in our bat- 
tles, before the French Government decided to 
recognize our existence or give to our cause the 
weight of its official sanction. After it had done 
so, it was not content with empty words, but sent 
over a fleet and an army, without whose assist- 
ance, some claim, our fight could never have been 
won. We also had invaluable help from officers 
of other nationalities: from the Polish generals 
Kosciuszko and Pulaski; that grave friend of 
Lafayette's, the Austrian Baron De Kalb; and 
from Baron von Steuben, who had served on the 
staff of Frederick the Great. In the two vcars 



WILL-O'-THE-WISP SOLDIERS 113 

that passed before England awoke to the gravity 
of the rebellion the patriots had time to learn 
much, both from their own mistakes and from the 
drill and training of these officers, particularly 
from Baron von Steuben, who gave freely of his 
knowledge and skill during the bitter winter at 
Valley Forge. Our armies, however, were chiefly 
made up of farmers and dwellers in the small 
towns, who enlisted for a few weeks or months 
and then went home to till their fields or wait until 
winter was over, many of them reenlisting again 
and again, when their home duties were done or 
the need for recruits seemed great. In addition 
to these there were the minute-men who came to- 
gether in their own neighborhood on notice of 
British approach, bringing with them ammuni- 
tion and food to last a few days, harassed the 
enemy as long as these supplies held out, and 
faded away again, their place being taken by min- 
ute-men from the next county to be invaded. 

The English sent over their own well-trained 
regulars, as well as soldiers enlisted for this spe- 
cial' war ; and in addition to these there were many 
regiments of Hessians, hired from their reigning 
princes "at a contract price of thirty-six dollars 
a head," as if they had been animals. They were 
huge men of guttural speech and fantastic ap- 
pearance, with high fur hats, long jack-boots, 



H4 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

fierce black moustaches that were dyed every 
morning with shoe polish according to popular be- 
lief, and they carried an array of weapons that 
made each a walking arsenal. The Americans 
called them "Dutch butchers," and loathed them 
not so much because of their acts, which were bar- 
barous enough according to all accounts, but be- 
cause they were the type of humanity that is will- 
ing to enter a quarrel for money and to kill or be 
killed for pay. 

The difference between American and English 
ways of fighting had been demonstrated on Brad- 
dock's Field and in every battle since; but it was 
a difference the British never condescended to 
notice. They took into account neither climate 
nor conditions, made their men march in heavy 
flannel shirts and cumbersome uniforms through 
the sweltering furnace of our American summers, 
and made them manoeuver and fight as they had 
been taught to do abroad. The English soldiers 
obeyed with the precision of machines, and the 
grit and stupidity of men who would rather die 
according to rule than transgress one article of 
their military regulations. The contrast between 
the two armies may be flippantly expressed as that 
between perfectly drilled arms and legs on the 
one side and nimble feet and wits on the other. 
Mr. Usher says : 



WILL-O'-THE-WISP SOLDIERS 115 

The very fact of the British army's discipline and 
organization became a hindrance the moment they left 
the open fields and advanced into the wilds. A couple of 
thousand farmers in their shirtsleeves and without any 
artillery and baggage could straggle across fields, scaling 
fences, penetrating woods, and losing little if anything 
of their efficiency in the process. ... A British column 
on the other hand could not advance without roads. . . . 
The trampling of many feet and the wheels of artillery 
and baggage wagons soon rendered even a dry field a 
quagmire. . . . Inasmuch as few roads in America were 
sufficiently well made to stand the travel of an army, 
the Americans possessed a positive advantage over the 
British in maneuvering, which would have given them 
victory after victory, had not the very lack of organiza- 
tion that helped them on the march been a fatal defi- 
ciency on the field of battle. The British therefore could 
rarely be dislodged, but could always be eluded. After 
the first two years the American generals thoroughly ap- 
preciated this fact, and kept the campaigns in territory 
which offered the English the maximum of difficulty. 

It is stated that even toward the end of the war 
General Greene, perhaps the most successful gen- 
eral next to Washington, realized that a third of 
his raw army would run at the first fire, and 
planned his campaigns accordingly. He placed 
the rawest troops in the first rank, "with orders 
to fire one volley before they ran, or the second 
rank would shoot them. The second and third 
ranks, placed at wide intervals, were to let the 
fugitives through and, when the English ap- 



n6 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

peared, offer some resistance themselves and then 
retreat before they were harmed. The third 
rank, composed of experienced troops, would 
cover the flight of their less enthusiastic com- 
rades. The battle would always be lost, but ten 
miles up the road Greene would find his army 
quite as before, save for the breath lost in run- 
ning.'' Thus the enemy would be led on, away 
from the British base of supplies into the hills 
where there was little for it to eat, or toward 
some point where the Americans had the best of 
reasons to believe they would meet reinforce- 
ments. 

The very lack of system in this fluctuating 
force made it puzzling to orderly British minds. 
They seemed constantly to be confronted by fresh 
men, all innocent of making war by rule, but ac- 
customed to think for themselves, familiar with 
the region and knowing to the last cow and meas- 
ure of grain where food was to be obtained. 
Even American officers seemed not to care when 
or what or how they ate, provided they could keep 
strength in their bodies, while to the average Brit- 
ish officer, dinner was a rite to be observed with 
due solemnity and a traveling-case of wines. 
Then the marksmanship of these stragglers in 
shirts and linen breeches was another source of 
unpleasant surprise. The British had decided 



WILL-O'-THE-WISP SOLDIERS njr 

that the musket was too inaccurate a weapon for 
use "except in volley firing." The Americans 
demonstrated their way of using it at Bunker 
Hill. The British resented such extreme skill as 
unsportsmanlike and objected to having their men 
shot at from behind walls or their officers dis- 
turbed at meals. But the Americans had learned 
war in the school of Indian fighting, which was no 
military game, but a mortal struggle in which a 
man's own life was the grim price of failure. 

According to modern ideas the number of men 
engaged in the battles of the Revolution was tri- 
fling. Even measured by the standards of that 
day it was small. Lafayette called the Revolu- 
tion "the grandest of contests, won by skirmishes 
of sentinels and outposts." It is probably the 
only great war won by an almost unbroken series 
of defeats. "The most puzzling thing to the 
English," says Usher, "became, as the war pro- 
gressed, the willingness of the Americans to lose 
the battles." Washington's road to military 
glory was along a path of adversity from his first 
command as a youngster to its triumphant close. 
Surely in all the world's history no other general 
gained such luster by defeat. 



CHAPTER X 

THE BRITISH WEDGE 

THE first period of the war, up to the time 
General Howe was driven from Boston, 
Was, after all, only preliminary. It was like the 
vestibule to a house, a very important opening. 
[The war's closing scenes were in the South, but 
the absorbing part of the contest took place in the 
middle section, in New York and New Jersey. It 
Was here that the fight was really fought, that the 
Continental Army suffered most, and that Wash- 
ington showed his skill. 

New York's triangular shape was a great ad- 
vantage from the British point of view. She 
seemed like a giant wedge, which might be suc- 
cessfully driven through the heart of the rebel- 
lious States. Her wide-spreading western fron- 
tier laid her specially open to Indian attacks. 
Along her eastern border was that route down 
from Canada by way of the St. Lawrence, Lake 
Champlain, and the Hudson that had played so 
large a part in the previous war. Possession of 
her tiny bit of coast not only insured the use of a 
seaport ranking even at that time high in the list 

118 



THE BRITISH WEDGE 119 

of American towns, but also the control of the 
mouth of the Hudson, the southern end of the 
coveted highway to Canada. Manhattan had 
been originally settled by the Dutch. A dozen 
languages could be heard upon its streets any 
day, and perhaps because of this it showed little 
of that warm desire for freedom characteristic of 
New England and some colonies farther south. 
Tory sentiment was likewise strong in the Mo- 
hawk valley to the west. Here, in short, seemed 
the pathway to British success. 

The patriots had not overlooked the importance 
of that interior water-route to Canada. It was 
to forestall advance along this line that Ethan 
Allen had hastened to make his dramatic demand 
for the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga, and that 
General Montgomery and Benedict Arnold had 
attempted their winter invasion. After its fail- 
ure the Americans had gradually been pushed 
back as far as Crown Point. The wedge was 
already in position; the upper part of the route 
was already in British hands; all that remained 
was to drive it home. So, after a short but fruit- 
less attempt against South Carolina in June, 1776, 
when a fort of palmetto logs built by Colonel 
Moultrie on Sullivan's Island in Charleston Har- 
bor proved singularly elastic and resisted shot and 
shell while inflicting notable damage on the Brit- 



120 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

ish fleet, the South and New England were left 
severely alone, and British attention was con- 
centrated on New York. 

It was on the fifth of July, the day after Phila- 
delphia's Liberty Bell had rung out tidings of the 
Declaration of Independence, that General Howe 
appeared in force at Staten Island with twenty- 
five thousand men. A week later "Black Dick," 
his naval brother, now an admiral, arrived in com- 
mand of the fleet. These two, knowing America, 
and known by Americans to be liberal in their 
views of the quarrel, seemed to the authorities in 
London ideal commanders to put down the rebel- 
lion and yet keep the friendship of the rebels. 
Washington had an army of eighteen thousand 
ready to receive General Howe; but he refused to 
receive a letter addressed by General Howe in his 
capacity of mediator to "George Washington, 
Esq.," as though he were a private person. The 
American commander returned it with the crisp 
explanation that he knew of no such person in 
camp, adding the suggestion that it might be de- 
livered at Mt. Vernon at the end of the war. So 
Howe had to drop his role of peacemaker and 
return to that of military chief. 

The first trial of strength occurred at the battle 
of Long Island on August 27, where the British 
outnumbered the Americans four to one, and the 



THE BRITISH WEDGE 121 

latter suffered a severe defeat, losing four hun- 
dred killed and a thousand prisoners. For this 
success General Howe was knighted. Forced to 
retreat, Washington ferried his men across the 
East River under the very prows of British pa- 
trol-hoats. Howe was even yet disinclined to 
push matters to extremes. He and his brother 
again tried negotiation and actually succeeded 
in arranging the interview with three members 
of Congress. Four days after this fruitless 
meeting he crossed the East River in his turn, 
landing at a country spot now covered with 
bricks and known as Thirty-fourth Street. On 
the same day Washington withdrew to Harlem 
Heights, hoping to keep the English from sailing 
up the Hudson. Tradition has it that Lord 
Howe followed hotly until he came to the resi- 
dence of Madam Murray, mother of the writer 
of the well-known grammar. This lady had pa- 
triotism and wit and cool wine at her command, 
and used all three so successfully that she de- 
layed pursuit for several precious hours. Next 
day Howe tried to break through the line Wash- 
ington had strengthened during this respite, but 
failed, losing three hundred men. Then the Eng- 
lish commander paused in a leisurely fashion to 
study his problem before the next attack. But 
by the middle of November Fort Washington was 



122 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

in his hands, British boats could sail up the Hud- 
son for forty miles, and three thousand of Wash- 
ington's men, one-sixth of his entire force, had 
been captured. 

It was after this that Washington began the 
retreat across New Jersey which established his 
fame as one of the great commanders of history. 
The heavy odds against him were not all in Gen- 
eral Howe's army. Some were in his own camp, 
some in Congress, some in the fierceness of the 
winter storms. For all his self-control, he was 
no saint, and his army, especially in those early 
days, was no miracle of bravery. It was the try- 
ing period when men and officers were "finding 
themselves." It is said that he was left virtually 
alone on the battle-field on Long Island in his 
fruitless attempt to turn back the fleeing and ter- 
rified patriots; and that he discharged his loaded 
pistols after them, with a torrent of vigorous 
words that told just what he thought of their 
conduct. Some of his best officers made grave 
mistakes, but by means of them learned lessons 
that they later turned to good account. 

Others never learned. Black tales are told of 
personal treachery. A plot to poison Washing- 
ton like a dog was discovered. The pretentious 
General Charles Tee, who had "seen service 
abroad" and therefore loomed large in his own 



THE BRITISH WEDGE 123 

exalted opinion and in that of less conceited fel- 
low-officers, was covetous enough to desire su- 
preme command, and to this end was willing to 
sacrifice human lives and personal honor to ruin 
Washington. Fortunately, a party of British 
dragoons did the American cause the very great 
service of capturing this dangerous person as he 
sat alone for a moment in an unguarded tavern ; 
so temporarily this menace was removed from 
the army. 

General Howe was a good officer when roused, 
but slow to follow up advantages, and in this 
campaign of retreat and pursuit he allowed him- 
self to be led on and on, away from the Hudson, 
sometimes entering one side of a town as Wash- 
ington's rear-guard left it on the other, but never 
making the supreme effort that might have 
brought him success despite Washington's great 
skill. The pursuit continued until they came 
within a few miles of Philadelphia. Congress 
fled from the city in alarm, and the British ranged 
where they would along the east bank of the Dela- 
ware. Canada was lost. Long Island, New 
York, and New Jersey were all in possession of 
the enemy. Washington's army had not been 
paid. A large part of it was held prisoner in 
New York. The remainder was dwindling rap- 
idly, and the enlistments of most of the men who 



124 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

remained would expire with the old year. It 
seemed that the wedge had been successfully 
driven home, and that the end of the war was now 
only a matter of days. General Howe returned 
to New York, and Lord Cornwallis, his second 
in command, prepared to sail for England. 

But the British Army in the field followed close 
upon the heels of the retreating patriots. It 
reached Trenton just too late to prevent the 
American escape across the icy Delaware. It 
was here that Washington did the unexpected 
thing and did it against the advice of his officers, 
who thought it too hazardous. He knew that on 
the first day of January his force would be re- 
duced to fifteen hundred men. On Christmas 
night he turned upon his pursuers, recrossed the 
Delaware in darkness and in a storm that made 
the enterprise doubly perilous, marched back 
upon Trenton over roads that the sleet had turned 
to sticky mire which added the last touch of diffi- 
culty to the adventure, and fell with such sudden- 
ness upon the eleven hundred Hessians who were 
sleeping off their Christmas debauch in the town 
that nine hundred and fifty of them were cap- 
tured, with a loss of only eight of his own force, 
two of whom were frozen to death in the terrible 
chill. The fate of his enterprise had hung for a 
moment in the balance. An informer brought 



THE BRITISH WEDGE 125 

the Hessian commander warning in ample time, 
but that worthy, drowsy and tipsy with feasting, 
and amorously intent on winning a kiss from a 
pretty serving-maid, crammed the note into his 
pocket unread. 

In addition to their prisoners, the Americans 
captured at Trenton six brass field-pieces and a 
liberal supply of small arms. The fight was over 
in thirty-five minutes; the news of it roused the 
country from despair to enthusiasm in a time al- 
most as brief. Credit and hope and the number 
of recruits all revived. The bits of red cloth 
that timid residents had tacked to farm-house 
doors to indicate their British sympathy disap- 
peared as if by magic. Congress voted renewed 
confidence in Washington and, what w r as more to 
the point, promised to borrow money and pay his 
soldiers. This was gratifying, but Washington, 
alive to the instant need for funds with which to 
clothe and feed them, pledged his own private 
fortune. Other patriots followed his example. 
Robert Morris of Philadelphia passed the morn- 
ing of New Year's day, 1777, knocking at the 
doors of his friends, and he soon had fifty thou- 
sand dollars in real cash to put into Washington's 
hands, a sum worth many times that amount in 
promises, as a measure of the reviving confi- 
dence. 



126 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Cornwallis gave up his plan of returning to 
England, collected troops as rapidly as possible at 
Princeton, and marched with seven thousand men 
to "wipe out the late mortifying disgrace." 
Washington reasoned that, if he came with that 
number, he could not have left many behind ; and 
at midnight on January 2, leaving camp-fires 
burning and men digging trenches to deceive the 
enemy, he marched the continental army back by 
a road parallel to the one along which the British 
were advancing, to fall upon their rear-guard. 
Morning found them at Princeton, where they 
had a hot fight with three British regiments, an 
engagement won by the Continentals with a loss 
of brave officers and men, and at great risk to 
Washington's own life, as he rallied the troops 
for the last victorious charge, within thirty yards 
of the enemy's guns. The enemy was pursued 
some distance toward Brunswick, where Wash- 
ington hoped to repeat his success. But his 
troops, worn out with incessant marching and 
fighting on scanty allowances of food and sleep, 
were too much exhausted, and after a short rest 
the American army turned north toward Morris- 
town, where it went into winter quarters. 

"Between Christmas, 1776, and January, 
1777," says a military critic, "Washington in very 
truth snatched victory out of the jaws of defeat." 



THE BRITISH WEDGE 127 

Not least among the things he accomplished was 
to lure Howe away from the Hudson River, which 
the British Government expected him to secure 
after taking New York. He had not been ac- 
tually ordered to do this, and Washington suc- 
ceeded in diverting him from the cherished pur- 
pose of cutting the rebellion in two. Once di- 
verted, it was hard for Howe to return to it be- 
fore he had justified his course by the capture of 
Philadelphia. During the early summer of 1777 
he devoted himself to this object, meaning to take 
his army north after it was done. On the twelfth 
of June he began a march across New Jersey with 
eighteen thousand men, but Washington man- 
aged to block him with eight thousand, occupying 
positions where Howe could not attack to ad- 
vantage, yet dared not leave the Americans for 
fear of having his communications cut. On the 
last day of June he gave up the attempt and re- 
turned to Staten Island, sailing from there five 
days later for the head of Chesapeake Bay, to 
approach Philadelphia from that direction. Gen- 
eral Charles Lee, who was Howe's prisoner and 
bent on showing that he was really Tory at heart, 
used his undoubted eloquence to urge him on. It 
must be confessed that the idea of capturing the 
home of the Continental Congress was alluring 
and, if successful, bound to bring great discour- 



128 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

agement to the patriot cause. It must be con- 
fessed, too, that Howe succeeded, for Washing- 
ton opposed him at the battle of Brandywine on 
September n, and was defeated, and again at 
the battle of Germantown on October 4, was 
equally unfortunate. After that the Continental 
Army retired to make a winter camp at Valley 
Forge, and Flowe and his army entered Philadel- 
phia. But success came too late to permit carry- 
ing out the second part of his program, and that 
proved the great British misfortune of the war. 

Howe's troops lay through the cold weather in 
comfort in the city, while the privations in Wash- 
ington's gloomy camp were the most severe that 
the Americans were called upon to endure. But 
during the terrible winter at Valley Forge, Wash- 
ington's ragged host was welded into an army of 
which any general might be proud. He was 
proud of them. "Naked and starving as they 
are," he wrote, "we cannot sufficiently admire 
the incomparable patience and fidelity of the sol- 
diers." The weather was intensely cold. There 
was not enough food or shelter or clothing. The 
barefooted soldiers left bloody footprints in the 
snow, and men actually died of starvation. Con- 
spiracy tried to undermine faith in Washington, 
even to bribe to its side the gallant young Lafay- 
ette who had come to America in time to receive 



THE BRITISH WEDGE 129 

his wound at Brandywine. Lafayette was as 
loyal as his heart was big, and his presence was 
not the least among the small bits of comfort that 
Washington was able to extract from the situa- 
tion. 

Before he knew Lafayette, Washington's per- 
sonal dealings with Frenchmen had been limited 
to those he met in the French and Indian War, 
and his experience of officers who had served 
abroad to such unfortunate examples as Charles 
Lee and General Horatio Gates, a little man with 
a plausible tongue and a cuckoo's gift for slipping 
into places to which he had no right. Washing- 
ton had been distinctly uncordial in thought to- 
ward the foreign officers who came over during 
the summer of 1777 to join his army and, fearing 
that Lafayette would put on airs, was annoyed 
at having to welcome him. But their meeting 
proved a case of friendship at first sight, which 
speedily deepened into real affection. Far from 
putting on airs the young Frenchman was will- 
ing and eager to bear his share of hardship. One 
of his small acts of kindness that only came to 
light half a century after it happened was done 
during this cold winter at Valley Forge. The 
last time Lafayette was in America an aged man 
came up to shake his hand. He was dressed in a 
faded Continental uniform, and across his shoul- 



130 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

ders he wore a piece of old and dingy blanket. 
He asked the general if he remembered a stormy 
night when he took the musket from the hands of 
a shivering sentry and sent him to his own tent 
with orders to bring back stockings and a blanket, 
promising to do duty for him till he returned. 
The soldier found that even a general at Valley 
Forge owned only one covering for his bed, but 
when he brought the desired articles, Lafayette 
bade him put on the stockings and, taking out his 
sword, fraternally divided the blanket in half. 

The story not only portrays the want in that 
winter camp, but the spirit in which it was borne. 
John Marshall, who was in after years to be- 
come America's great chief justice, joked about 
his discomforts. Young Alexander Hamilton, 
whom Washington loved like a son, was there to 
ease his chief's burden where he could, giving 
long and laborious days to clerical duty, using that 
wonderful brain of his on a thousand perplexing 
problems, and seasoning the fare at the frugal 
mess-table with his brilliant talk. Scores of offi- 
cers proved their mettle that winter ; thousands of 
soldiers, their heroism. In December, Baron 
von Steuben brought his great knowledge and 
skill to the camp and gave officers and men alike 
what would now be called "intensive training." 



THE BRITISH WEDGE 131 

They came out from the trial welded in a spirit 
of comradeship and devotion that was destined 
to be the seed of the spirit of a great nation. 



CHAPTER XI 

"BRITISH SOLDIERS DO NOT RETREAT" 

THOUGH Philadelphia had been lost and 
Valley Forge was a place of torment, the 
cause of liberty had taken a great step forward 
in the year 1777, and Washington had reason to 
be satisfied with the work of his army. 

Incensed that Howe paid so little heed to its 
wish to control the Hudson, the British Govern- 
ment had refused the request for fifteen thousand 
troops with which he promised to end the war in 
#■777 > and sent, instead, a new army of seven or 
eight thousand men to Canada under General 
John Burgoyne, who was instructed to carry out 
the old and cherished plan. Burgoyne was a 
favorite and personal friend of the king, a man 
who was fond of making phrases, and more proud 
of some poems and plays he had written than of 
the fine military reputation he had won in Por- 
tugal. But he was not ashamed of that or of 
the British Army. "British soldiers do not re- 
treat," was a favorite saying of his, and one that 
he and his men kept to the letter. 

132 



BURGOYNE'S DEFEAT 133 



Having been in Boston when Bunker Hill was 
fought, he thought he knew the Americans 
through and through. It was with perfect con- 
fidence in himself, therefore, as well as in his 
men and his mission, that he started southward 
early in June, held conferences full of phrase- 
making with his Indian allies, and arranged for 
their help on the western frontier of New York. 
According to this arrangement, part of his force, 
under Colonel Barry St. Leger, was to go by 
boat up the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario as 
far as Oswego, and to march from there upon Al- 
bany through the Mohawk Valley, where Sir John 
Johnson, son of old Sir William, carried on his 
father's doubtful traditions of Indian lordship 
and Tory power. Meanwhile, Burgoyne, with 
his main force, was to follow the usual route by 
way of Lake Champlain. Albany was to be the 
rendezvous. Lie expected Howe to come from 
the south, and that by the time the three com- 
manders met, the wedge would be driven well 
home, and rebellion would be dead. 

He reached the neighborhood of Ticonderoga 
almost without opposition. His men climbed to 
the top of Mount Defiance and planted cannon 
there in the dead of night, and in the morning the 
fort that had resisted Abercrombie's force of fif- 
teen thousand men in that first assault and had 



134 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

surrendered weakly the second time to the sound 
of Ethan Allen's boisterous voice received them 
with echoing emptiness. The Americans had fled 
toward Fort Edward. There was something sin- 
ister about Ticonderoga. 

Leaving a garrison in the empty fort, Bur- 
goyne now plunged into the wooded country be- 
tween Lake Champlain and the upper waters of 
the Hudson. General Philip Schuyler, "a rare 
man, full of sound sense," but unfortunately a 
prey to the intrigues of officers who wished to sup- 
plant him, commanded the Americans. Schuy- 
ler's force was not large, but it was better 
equipped than Washington's own, and Schuyler 
fully understood that the farther he could draw 
the British away from their base of supplies the 
better it would be for America in the end, since 
he was leading them into a country where there 
was neither Tory sentiment nor food enough to 
sustain them. With modifications he did just 
what Washington had done in New Jersey, just 
what a bird does when she lures enemies away 
from the nest ; he retreated, righting only enough 
to add zest to pursuit, delaying where possible, 
but making it seem worth while for the enemy still 
to pursue. 

The Americans did their work of delay so well 
by felling trees and burning bridges that the 



BURGOYNE'S DEFEAT 135 

English advanced at the rate of only a mile or two 
a day, but they continued to advance. Mean- 
while, General Lincoln gathered a force in the 
Green Mountains to fall upon Burgoyne's rear. 
His main depot was at Bennington, in the south- 
west corner of Vermont ; when at last it dawned 
upon Burgoyne that he was being led into danger, 
he determined to capture this place and at one 
stroke get rid of the menace and replenish his 
stores. He sent a thousand Hessians to take 
possession of the little town. Instead, only about 
seventy fugitives returned to the British camp 
after their attack on the sixteenth of August. 
John Stark of New Hampshire was the hero 
of the fray, and whether or not he made that 
theatrical speech: "There, my lads, are the Hes- 
sians. To-night our flag floats over yonder hill, 
or Molly Stark lies a widow !" it has rung through 
the years as one of the characteristic utterances 
of the time. 

This repulse at Bennington not only forced 
Burgoyne to halt until he could bring up necessary 
supplies ; it raised a tremulous hope in American 
breasts that his whole army might be captured, 
though there were still two important factors 
to be reckoned with, Howe and the force under 
St. Leger. Howe, as we know, was safe, for 
Washington was "pursuing the useful art of 



136 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

wasting his enemy's time." St. Leger, too, was 
having troubles of his own. The Indians proved 
less desirable allies, and Tory sentiment was less 
enthusiastic in the Mohawk Valley than the Brit- 
ish anticipated. After leaving Oswego the first 
place that St. Leger was called upon to subdue 
was Fort Stanwix, with its garrison of six hun- 
dred. Learning that a force of eight hundred 
Americans was coming to the help of the fort, 
St. Leger arranged an ambush for them with the 
help of that terror of the New York frontier, the 
Mohawk known as Brant, who had the unpro- 
nounceable Indian name of Thayendanegea and 
an equally unprofitable white man's education, 
acquired at the school which later became Dart- 
mouth College. 

Not suspecting that his plans were known, Gen- 
eral Herkimer halted his men on August 6 within 
a few miles of Fort Stanwix and waited for the 
signal that had been agreed upon. It did not 
come, and impatient spirits taunted him with 
cowardice. This was an accusation that the old 
man could not bear, and stung past endurance, he 
gave the word to advance. A few minutes later, 
when they stepped upon a narrow causeway 
through a ravine, the woods and rocks became 
vocal with Indian yells and Tory shots, and they 
found themselves in the hottest combat of the 



BURGOYNE'S DEFEAT 137 

war, the battle of the Oriskany, a hand-to-hand 
fight that lasted until more than a third of the 
eight hundred engaged on each side had fallen. 
Little groups of patriots placed themselves back to 
back and fought until they perished. When am- 
munition gave out, they used clubbed muskets and 
knives and fists. Fort Stanwix, hearing shots, 
sent out help, but a thunder-storm, so severe that 
even the men battling for their lives had to desist 
for a time, added its majesty and terror and kept 
back this welcome reinforcement. After an hour 
and a half the engagement ended with Herkimer's 
men in possession of the field, but the gallant old 
general had received his death-wound. After 
being struck, he had calmly seated himself on the 
ground, with his back to a tree, had lighted his 
pipe, and continued to give orders as long as his 
strength held out. 

On learning of this battle, General Schuyler 
called for volunteers to go to the relief of the fort, 
and it was the impulsive Benedict Arnold who 
set out with a force of twelve hundred. He man- 
aged to send such exaggerated reports ahead of 
him, by means of an Indian whose life had been 
forfeited for some misdeed, but who was offered 
this way of atoning, that St. Leger in a panic, 
believed that Burgoyne must have been beaten 
and that Schuyler's entire army was upon him. 



138 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

The siege of Fort Stanwix was hastily aban- 
doned; the British fled in disorder; and by the 
time St. Leger reached his ships at Oswego he 
had almost no army left. 

Intrigue, meanwhile, succeeded in having Gen- 
eral Schuyler replaced by General Gates ; but even 
this very grave military blunder could not save 
Burgoyne. Still hoping to meet Howe, he pushed 
on, reached the Hudson, and crossed to the side 
on which the American Army had taken position 
at Bemis Heights near Saratoga. Then he 
learned that General Lincoln had successfully 
cut his communications with Ticonderoga, and 
that he must either fight or starve where he was. 
He fought not only one battle, but two, the first 
on the nineteenth of September, the second on 
the seventh of October. In the first battle of 
Saratoga he was repulsed. After the second, his 
British Army, true to his favorite saying, did not 
retreat ; it surrendered. He had exposed himself 
to shot and shell with a gallantry rivalling that of 
Washington at Princeton, but he came through 
without a scratch. It would probably have been 
easier for him to give up his life than give up his 
sword to mere American farmers, as he did on 
October 17, surrendering almost six thousand 
men. 

Historians are careful to say that both these 



BURGOYNE'S DEFEAT 139 

engagements were fought by the Americans un- 
der Benedict Arnold and General Morgan, with 
the assistance of General Kosciuszko in planning 
defenses, and that General Gates deserves no 
credit for them. But he reaped an amazing 
amount of it, and plumed himself and strutted, 
sure that he was a great man. There were wiser 
people than he, like John Adams, who had sug- 
gested Washington for commander-in-chief, who 
contrasted the summer's work of the two and felt 
that the man who had lost Philadelphia and been 
defeated in two important battles should give 
way to this real general, who had not only cap- 
tured a whole army, but cleared the Northern 
States of British troops. John Adams is credited 
with the bitter remark that "the Americans would 
not be able to defend a post until they first shot 
some of their generals." 

Burgoyne's surrender caused a great stir on 
both sides of the Atlantic. One of its important 
effects at home was that the notes issued by the 
Continental Congress rose twenty-three per cent, 
in value. This was a most welcome change, for 
between defeats on land, England's control of 
the sea, and "cart-loads" of counterfeit notes is- 
sued by the British to embarrass it, the credit of 
Congress had been forced very low indeed. It 
must not be forgotten that the Continental Con- 



140 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

gress had no power to issue money. It could only 
request the States to do so, and promise to pay 
them back at some future time. The value of 
these promises had been growing less and less. 
''Not worth a Continental," an expression that 
has survived to our own day, tersely figures the 
contempt in which they were held. 

Even more important that this material gain 
and the hope it indicated, was the effect of Bur- 
goyne's surrender abroad. Europe began to eye 
the patriot cause with real respect. Scholars 
delved into ancient history to find parallels in 
Greece and Rome for this army that had come out 
of its fields and forests, won such a victory, and 
melted away again ; for all except a small portion 
of Gates's army returned to the homes from 
whence it came. From the first the French Gov- 
ernment had been secretly in sympathy, and had 
shown itself conveniently blind when the rich 
young Marquis de Lafayette fitted out a ship at 
his own expense and sailed to the help of the pa- 
triots. Now France came boldly forward with 
offers of soldiers and ships. Spain, heretofore 
wavering between hate of England and fear of 
democracy, let the pendulum swing her to the side 
of America and away from England. Holland 
showed herself willing to lend the new nation 
money; and England, reading her danger in all 



BURGOYNE'S DEFEAT 141 

these signs, hastened to offer the Americans vir- 
tually everything they asked for, except liberty. 
But the time for such overtures was past. Pat- 
rick Henry's impassioned ''Give me liberty, or 
give me death 1" which had seemed a radical and 
even fear-inspiring sentiment when it was ut- 
tered, now found its echo in every patriot breast, 
and public opinion rejected the British offer with 
scorn. 

The spring of 1778 brought almost undue 
hope, caused by news of the French alliance. 
The English were by no means ready to end the 
war. They substituted new commanders with as 
much skill and more energy than Howe and Gage, 
and these settled down to their task in earnest. 
Fortunately, Baron Steuben had by this time 
given the Continental Army much needed drill, 
and General Nathanael Greene had organized a 
more efficient quartermaster's department, so that 
the soldiers were not called upon to suffer as be- 
fore. Congress, also, had managed to establish 
agencies abroad, through which some of the 
needed supplies not manufactured in America 
could be bought ; and though America's navy had 
begun the war with only seventeen vessels, there 
were blockade runners by means of which such 
supplies slipped out to sea and, evading the British 
on the lookout for them, reached their destina- 



142 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

tion. Congress had also issued letters of marque 
to privateers who attacked British ships and 
sometimes captured them and their rich cargoes. 
The prince of these sea-rovers, John Paul Jones, 
has left a name for daring and gallantry, not to 
say effrontery, that will long be remembered. 
The spirit in which he fought is shown by his 
answer to the question if he was ready to surren- 
der, "I have not yet begun to fight !" and equally 
in his reply to Captain Pearson of the Scrapis, 
who had the bad taste to remark that it was with 
great reluctance that he resigned his sword "to a 
man who may be said to fight with a halter round 
his neck." John Paul Jones answered, "Sir, you 
have fought like a hero, and I have no doubt your 
sovereign will reward you in the most ample man- 
ner." 

Yet despite new commanders on the English 
side, and new enthusiasm on the American, the 
early months of 1778 passed without an important 
engagement. Sir Henry Clinton, who had suc- 
ceeded Howe, learned that a French fleet was to 
be sent across the Atlantic, and fearing he might 
be blockaded in Philadelphia, marched his four- 
teen thousand soldiers back again to New York. 
Washington followed, coming up with the British 
at Monmouth Court House in New Jersey on the 
twenty-eighth of June. Unfortunately, General 



BURGOYNE'S DEFEAT 143 

Charles Lee had been exchanged for a British 
officer, and was again with the Americans. He 
had managed to cover up his double-dealing, and 
was in command of one section of the army. The 
battle went in favor of the patriots until confus- 
ing orders issued by him caused part of his men to 
fall back. Lafayette scented treachery, and dis- 
patched a messenger in hot haste for the com- 
mander-in-chief. Washington hurried to the 
battle-field and found a retreat in full progress. 
Meeting Lee face to face, his indignation burst 
forth in the scathing fury possible only to strong 
natures, whose passions are habitually under 
firm control. The interview was brief, but ter- 
rible, and it ended Lee's military career. Turn- 
ing from him, Washington did what he could to 
repair the disaster, he checked the retreat, brought 
up more troops, and fought a drawn battle, but 
the chance for a decisive victory had been lost. 
Clinton reached New York in safety, and Wash- 
ington occupied White Plains. This brought the 
combatants once more into the relative positions 
their armies had occupied after the battle of Long 
Island two years earlier. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE TURNCOAT 

THE battle at Monmouth Court House proved 
to be the last battle of consequence fought 
in the Northern States. After this the British 
gave up their plan of driving a wedge through the 
heart of the rebellion, and substituted for it an 
attempt to capture the Southern States, one by 
one. .There were still happenings of great mo- 
ment and great dramatic interest in the North, 
which brought both sorrow and luster to the 
American arms; but the real field of operations 
lay elsewhere, and the two armies confronting 
each other near the Hudson played merely a wait- 
ing game. 

When the campaign in the South began late in 
1778, Colonel Campbell landed in Georgia with a 
force of two thousand and in a fortnight had the 
whole state under British control. But this suc- 
cess proved more apparent than real ; it was the 
signal for beginning a guerrilla warfare that 
lasted throughout the South until the end of the 
struggle. .The Tories, who were more numerous 

144 







JOHN PAUL JONES 



Copperplate engraving: by Carl Outtenberg- from a drawing: by C. J. Notte 
Collection of TV. C. Crane 



THE TURNCOAT 145 

there than elsewhere, with the exception of New 
York, joined the English forces, while their op- 
ponents formed themselves into bands that dashed 
out from hiding-places in mountains or forest to 
strike a blow and vanish again until the next op- 
portunity to harm their adversaries. The Brit- 
ish had hoped that the slaves would rise against 
their masters. They proved loyal, and the 
country was mercifully spared the horror of a 
race war; but it was almost the only form of vio- 
lence that did not take place in the pandemonium 
of burning plantations, lynchings, and other hate- 
ful details of partizan warfare that rolled over the 
land from Georgia to Virginia. Washington's 
home was menaced; Jefferson's suffered serious 
injury. 

Congress sent down General Lincoln, who had 
done such effective work against Burgoyne, to 
take command. He withstood an attack upon 
Charleston and forced his assailants to retire to 
Savannah. In October, 1779, the French Ad- 
miral d'Estaing appeared off Savannah with a 
fleet and summoned the city to surrender. The 
British received reinforcements, Lincoln hurried 
to help d'Estaing with all the troops he could get 
together, and a siege was begun, which ended dis- 
astrously after three weeks. General Pulaski 
was killed in the final assault, and the Americans 



146 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

suffered heavily. After that the French fleet 
sailed away; and as General Lincoln's regiments 
had dwindled to nothing after the manner of mili- 
tia regiments in this war, he returned with the 
remnants of his force to Charleston. 

In December, Sir Henry Clinton, taking care 
to leave behind him enough troops to hold New 
York, sailed for the South with Lord Cornwallis 
and a fleet under Admiral Arbuthnot. Storms 
greatly hindered and delayed the expedition, but 
early in the new year he was in Georgia with ten 
thousand men, eight thousand of whom he had 
brought with him, the rest being local Tories. 
He sent back to New York for still more soldiers, 
and began moving cautiously upon Charleston. 
It was impossible for General Lincoln to hold the 
city against such numbers, and on May 12, 1780, 
it passed into British hands. Shortly after this 
Clinton departed for the North, leaving Corn- 
wallis with five thousand British soldiers to carry 
out a policy of severity and hard usage unparal- 
leled elsewhere during the Avar. 

Meantime in the North there had been happen- 
ings both gratifying and tragic. It was in the 
summer of 1779 that the same General Tryon 
who had made such bloody use of his power after 
the battle of the Alamance, set out to ravage and 
burn towns in the Connecticut valley, hoping to 



THE TURNCOAT 147 

lure part of Washington's force away from the 
Hudson and make it possible for the British to 
capture West Point, where a large part of the 
Continental Army was now encamped. Instead 
of being lured away, Washington seized the op- 
portunity offered by the absence of Tryon's force 
to attack Stony Point, the northernmost post held 
by the British. It was a rough little promontory 
jutting out into the Hudson about thirty-five miles 
above New York, important as commanding 
those "passes of the Hudson" often mentioned in 
military correspondence of the time. It was well 
fortified, defended by a garrison of six hundred 
men, and could only be approached by means of 
one crossing through a marsh or by a sandy 
beach, practicable only at low tide. General 
Washington sent for that born soldier known to 
his comrades as Mad Anthony Wayne, who had 
helped greatly to retrieve the disaster at Mon- 
mouth, and asked if he would undertake to carry 
Stony Point by assault. Tradition has it that 
he answered with the fervor characteristic of him 
that he would undertake to assault hell itself if 
Washington gave the word. 

Washington's detailed instructions call to mind 
that saying attributed to Peter the Great, that no- 
thing seems small to a really great man. Every 
point was considered, every possibility provided 



148 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

for; and Wayne carried out the plan with a preci- 
sion and brilliant success that makes the assault 
notable in military history. Nothing was left to 
chance. The soldiers who were to mask the 
attack did not know that theirs was only a feint, 
and not the real object of the expedition. The 
countersign was learned by a patriot in a black 
skin, a slave who sold strawberries to the officers 
inside the fort. Even faithful dogs died in their 
country's service that night, for a party of sol- 
diers was sent out in advance to poison all on the 
line of march so that no warning bark would give 
the alarm. When the British in the fort opened 
fire on the soldiers sent to divert attention from the 
main attack, the storming party, dividing in two 
columns, made its silent and difficult way upward, 
;with bayonets fixed, but with guns unloaded, in 
order that no stray shot might betray them. The 
time required was calculated with such precision 
that the two columns met in the center of the fort, 
to the amazement and consternation of its occu- 
pants. Most appropriately the countersign had 
been, "The fort 's our own!" and the victors gave 
it with a will. General Wayne had been wounded 
in the few moments of resistance offered by the 
garrison between the discovery of their plight and 
their surrender. Believing his injury to be mor- 
tal, he ordered that he be carried inside the fort to 



THE TURNCOAT 149 

receive its capitulation, and from there he wrote 
a report to his commander-in-chief, brief and to 
the point, as befitted a dying man : 

Stony Point, 16th July, 1779, 
2 o'clock A. M. 
Dear General: The fort and garrison with Colonel 
Johnson are ours. Our officers and men behaved like 
men determined to be free. 

Yours most sincerely, 

Ant'y Wayne. 

But he was not so badly injured as he thought, 
and he lived to render his country much excellent 
service. 

In July, 1780, a French army under Rocham- 
beau, five thousand strong, 'sailed into Newport 
on a fleet of transports that the ocean-weary sol- 
diers called in derision not ships, but "sabots." 
Lafayette and the few Frenchmen who had ar- 
rived ahead of their government's official per- 
mission had paved the way for a hearty welcome, 
which the courtesy of Rochambeau and his men 
still further increased. The American officers 
were pleased by the willingness of the French to 
accept any position or any duty offered them, a 
spirit in delightful contrast to that displayed by 
the British officers during the French and Indian 
War. The French, on their side, were senti- 
mentally touched by the sight of our ragged pa- 



150 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

triot army. The French privates were, more- 
over, a marvel of discipline, and Rochambeau 
swelled with pride that he could order them to 
camp in an orchard and trust them to leave the 
fruit untouched upon the trees. He made care- 
ful record that certain Indian chiefs who visited 
him remained unimpressed by all his panoply of 
war, yet showed open wonder at this. Unfortu- 
nately, many months were to elapse before these 
amiable allies could give effective help in battle, 
for a British fleet came and held them blockaded 
at Newport. But even so, their presence brought 
great comfort to the country at large, while the 
real coin with which they paid liberally for what 
they used added cheer and local prosperity to 
the region in which they camped. 

These were the pleasant happenings; others 
darkened the sunlight for Washington and wrung 
from him the bitter confession that he "had al- 
most ceased to hope." Bad news continued to 
come from the South. On the western frontier 
there were dreadful Indian massacres, one in 
the valley of Wyoming in Pennsylvania, another 
in Cherry Valley, New York. Then, blackest in- 
famy of all the war, came the treachery of Bene- 
dict Arnold. Up to that time Arnold had held 
high rank among American officers for gallantry 
in action, though he was of a difficult and jealous 



THE TURNCOAT 151 

disposition. Once already he had resigned from 
the army because of a fancied slight, only to rush 
back impetuously and lead the relief to Fort 
Stanvvix. He had been badly wounded at Sara- 
toga and, being too weak for service on the field 
when General Clinton abandoned Philadelphia, he 
was given command of that city. There he met 
and married a beautiful Tory, Margaret Ship- 
pen, and this brought him into a position where 
he had to be civil to members of the Tory party, 
who knew how to be civil and designing in turn. 
Soon Arnold found himself involved in a quar- 
rel with certain officials of Pennsylvania. This 
led to a court-martial, and he was sentenced to 
receive a reprimand from Washington. Wash- 
ington evidently considered it unjust, for his re- 
proof was so mild as to be almost praise; but it 
rankled in Arnold's breast. His Tory acquain- 
tances dropped the seed of poison and nurtured 
it skilfully. He came to believe not only that he 
had been ill-treated, but that the patriot cause was 
doomed. They showed Arnold how by one small 
act he could withdraw himself from his present 
intolerable position, gain forgiveness for his part 
in the rebellion, and take the place in the British 
Army to which his talents entitled him. They 
even persuaded him that he would be doing his 
patriot friends a service by shortening the war 



152 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

that could only end to their disadvantage. All 
he had to do was to apply for command of West 
Point and at the proper moment turn it over to 
Sir Henry Clinton. He agreed to do this, and the 
villainy was set in motion. Washington gave 
him the coveted post, the more readily perhaps to 
show his belief that the court-martial had erred. 

Before the plot could succeed, there was need 
for a personal interview between Arnold and a 
British officer. Clinton sent his adjutant-general, 
young Major Andre, to make the necessary ar- 
rangements, and the meeting took place on the 
twenty-first of September, after Arnold had been 
a month in command of West Point. Two days 
later Andre was captured as he was about to re- 
enter the British lines. He carried a pass from 
Arnold, and even then might have escaped his 
fate had he been in uniform, or if he had not lost 
his head and admitted that he was a British offi- 
cer. He was searched, and the papers found 
left no doubt of his errand. The stupid officer 
who made the capture unsuspectingly reported it 
to General Arnold, so that traitor escaped while 
the less guilty man suffered. 

Years afterward Lafayette, sailing up the 
Hudson, pointed out to his son and a party of 
friends the spot where Andre was captured, and 
told how he and General Washington were break- 



THE TURNCOAT 153 

fasting with Mrs. Arnold when the commander- 
in-chief first learned of Arnold's treason. Andre 
was tried by a military court, which sentenced him 
to death as a spy, and he was hanged on the sec- 
ond of October. Many friends interceded for 
him, and Washington admitted that the young 
officer was "more unfortunate than criminal," but 
insisted on the full severity of the law, not even 
granting his last request that he be shot instead 
of dying by the disgraceful rope. 

Andre was young and gifted, a man of great 
personal charm, to which an unhappy love story 
added its glamor. He had taken part in the so- 
cial gaieties of the British occupation of Phila- 
delphia, and his fate lingers as one of the tragi- 
cally romantic episodes of the war. It has been 
argued again and again that Washington might 
have allowed him to escape, or at least have suf- 
fered him to be shot instead of hanged. Accord- 
ing to law, Washington could not do otherwise 
than approve the order for his death. He was 
always able to subdue his own natural desires 
when he thought the good of the patriot cause de- 
manded it, and in this case it was not only that 
Arnold and Andre were of such prominence that 
an example had to be made, but things were going 
so badly for the Americans that any clemency at 
that moment might have been interpreted by the 



154 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

enemy as a sign of weakness, or even despair. 
After General Lincoln's surrender other troops 
had been dispatched to the South, seasoned regi- 
ments from Maryland and Delaware, under La- 
fayette's tall, grave friend De Kalb, and to these, 
militia from Virginia and South Carolina had 
been added. Washington desired to put this little 
army under General Nathanael Greene, who was 
proving himself one of the best of generals ; but 
Gates, with his plausible tongue and his repu- 
tation won at Saratoga, succeeded in getting the 
command. It proved a costly mistake. After 
the very first encounter with Cornwallis, Gates 
joined the militia in flight, and did not stop, it is 
said, until he had put two hundred miles between 
himself and the enemy. The encounter took 
place on August 16, 1780, at Camden, an impor- 
tant point near the center of South Carolina, 
where roads running north and south crossed 
others from the coast to the mountains. It was 
a desperate battle in which De Kalb was killed 
at the head of his Maryland troops and the 
Delaware soldiers were literally cut to pieces. 
Thus, in less than three months General Lincoln's 
army and this second one had been wiped out of 
existence. Then came Arnold's guilt, adding its 
stain of personal treason to the blackness of the 
military outlook. No wonder Washington wrote 



THE TURNCOAT 155 

that he had "almost" ceased to hope, or that he 
grew perceptibly older under the strain. 

But in truth this was the darkest moment of the 
war. In less than a week after the death of An- 
dre the tide of victory turned. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE END OF THE WAR 

THE intense midsummer heat kept Cornwallis 
and his heavily clad British soldiers inac- 
tive for several weeks after the battle of Camden ; 
but before the end of September he started north, 
confident of subduing everything between himself 
and the Susquehanna. Here again that saying 
about geography being three fourths of mili- 
tary history comes to mind, for the nature of the 
land in Virginia and the two Carolinas had much 
to do with the result. Many rivers, like the San- 
tee, the Great Pedee, the Cape Fear, the Neuse, 
the Roanoke, the James, the York, and others, rise 
in the Appalachian range of mountains to run 
diagonally southeastward in parallel courses 
across the level land to the sea. They gain in 
depth and width as they approach salt water, and 
also gain borders of swamp, making of the whole 
region a series of peninsulas, some wide and some 
narrow. Rivers are always hard for troops to 
cross, particularly in a region like the South of 
that day, where roads and bridges were few and 

156 



THE END OF THE WAR 157 

far between. The shape of the coast is such that 
an army could march toward Virginia between 
almost any two of these rivers, but to capture im- 
portant places in the two Carolinas it was neces- 
sary to cross many of them. Therefore, when 
Cornwallis began his march of conquest he had to 
go far enough inland to cross the rivers easily. 
This took him away from the support of British 
ships on the coast, toward the hills where there 
was abundant shelter for the bands of back- 
woodsmen who came from beyond the mountains 
to join local bands under skilful leaders intent on 
doing him all the harm they could. The English 
also had skilful leaders, who knew the country 
well, and when one of them, Major Ferguson, 
found he had ventured too far toward the hills, he 
took refuge on the very top of Kings Mountain, 
near the dividing line between North and South 
Carolina, thinking his position impregnable. It 
was carried by assault, however, in a fierce fight 
on October 7, 1780, when the commanders on 
both sides lost their lives and the British were vir- 
tually wiped out, four hundred of them being 
killed or wounded and the remaining seven hun- 
dred captured. 

Learning of this disaster, Cornwallis retreated 
into South Carolina and sent to Clinton for re- 
inforcements. While waiting for them, his men 



158 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

suffered not only from attacks by the patriots on 
his flanks, but from chills and fever, which struck 
down the unacclimated British soldiers right and 
left. Cornwallis himself was one of the suffer- 
ers. Before the reinforcements from New York 
arrived, a new patriot army numbering two 
thousand appeared near Kings Mountain, com- 
manded at last by General Greene, who had under 
him such officers as Daniel Morgan and "Light 
Horse Harry" Lee, father of the General Lee who 
was to win great fame in the Civil War eighty 
years later. The men they commanded had seen 
much service, and under such leaders were a 
match for any soldiers alive. In addition to this 
force, von Steuben was sent to Virginia to re- 
cruit fresh troops and to do all he could to help 
Greene from there. To oppose him there was 
Benedict Arnold, now wearing his ill-gotten Brit- 
ish uniform. 

General Greene was bold enough to attempt a 
move that only a skilful officer can carry to suc- 
cess. He divided his small army, sending part of 
it to threaten the English near the coast, while 
the remainder marched inland toward Camden 
and the other towns held by the British. At Cow- 
pens, a grazing-place not far from Kings Moun- 
tain, General Morgan managed on January 17, 
1 78 1, to outmanceuver his skilful opponent, Gen- 



THE END OF THE WAR 159 

eral Tarleton, in the open field, so disposing his 
nine hundred men that he not only surrounded 
and captured more than his own number, but also 
took the British artillery. General Tarleton es- 
caped with less than three hundred of his com- 
mand. 

Although the numbers in both engagements 
were small, this disaster, added to that of Kings 
Mountain, proved very serious to the British. 
Together, they deprived Cornwallis of almost all 
his light troops, when his one chance of safety 
lay in moving swiftly enough to defeat the sepa- 
rate portions of Greene's army before they could 
be united. He threw away his heavy baggage 
and marched as rapidly as possible, but mean- 
while General Greene's two forces moved closer 
and closer together and nearer and nearer to 
Virginia, where another body of troops was being 
collected under Baron von Steuben. Every mile 
that Cornwallis marched, on the contrary, carried 
him farther and farther away from his supplies. 
The two parts of Greene's army won the race. 
At Guilford Court House, near the head-waters 
of the Cape Fear River, not far from the Virginia 
border, Cornwallis was obliged to fight them at a 
disadvantage, two hundred miles away from his 
base. The battle took place on March 15, 1781, 
and was stubbornly contested. When night fell, 



160 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

the British were masters of the field, but too weak 
to risk a renewal of the fight the next day, and 
Cornwallis retreated to Wilmington on the coast. 
Finding that he had lost about one third of his 
army, he determined to go from there to Virginia, 
join Arnold, and move south again with their 
combined forces. It was only the first part of 
this plan that he was able to carry out. 

General Greene followed Cornwallis in his re- 
treat toward Wilmington for about fifty miles, 
after which he turned away, as if disdaining to 
give him further thought, and threatened Cam- 
den again. During the course of the summer he 
managed to get possession of all the inland towns 
held by the British, the campaign culminating on 
the eighth of September at the battle of Eutaw 
Springs, which the British claimed as another vic- 
tory, but after which they felt forced to retreat 
as they had done after Guilford Court House. It 
was during this summer that General Greene is 
said to have "reduced losing battles to a science." 
Each British "success" seemed to leave his enemy 
worse off than before. Like Washington in New 
Jersey and Schuyler in the campaign against 
Burgoyne, Greene was skilfully combining the 
strength of American geography and the weak- 
ness of American forces to defeat his adversary. 

When Cornwallis reached Petersburg, Vir- 




THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE, AS COMMANDER-GENERAL 
OF THE NATIONAL PARISIAN GUARD 

From an engraving- after the painting- by P. L. De Bucourt 
Dedicated to the Citizen Soldiers 



THE END OF THE WAR 161 

ginia, late in May, he had with his own army and 
that already in Virginia, about five thousand men. 
Arnold was ordered elsewhere. The British offi- 
cers do not appear to have found him congenial 
company. Lafayette now commanded a force 
of about three thousand in Virginia, and for 
nine weeks the British and Americans faced 
each other moving up and down the eastern 
part of the state, from Petersburg to Fred- 
ericksburg, then west, then south again to 
the James River. At first Cornwallis imagined 
that he was pursuing Lafayette with the object of 
forcing a battle. Then he found that the tables 
had been turned, that Lafayette had been joined 
by Anthony Wayne and Steuben, and that they 
were forcing the English Army out on the nar- 
row peninsula between the York and James rivers. 
By the latter part of July, Cornwallis was at 
Yorktown, near the very end of it. Here rein- 
forcements reached him by water, and his chances 
seemed to improve, for he had about seven thou- 
sand men. Then Washington saw his opportu- 
nity and, acting with great swiftness and vigor, 
moved the French away from Rhode Island to 
the Hudson, left a sufficient number of men there, 
and started South with all the rest of his force. 
The British had heard that a large French fleet 
under Count de Grasse was approaching. Clin- 



1 62 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

ton believed that it would attack New York, and 
Washington took good care to let him rest in 
that belief. Fortunately, geography helped here 
also, for the Continental Army could travel a long 
way on its road toward Virginia before Clinton 
was able to tell whether its destination was Staten 
Island or Yorktown. Supposing de Grasse's goal 
to be New York, Washington's logical move was 
toward Staten Island. When the Americans had 
passed Philadelphia, Washington's plan became 
apparent ; but it was then too late. After Wash- 
ington's force joined the army already in Vir- 
ginia, the Americans outnumbered the British two 
to one and held them prisoners on the Yorktown 
peninsula, while the French fleet prevented escape 
by sea. There was nothing for Cornwallis to 
do but surrender. 

But this could not happen until the town had 
stood its siege. Otherwise British military honor 
would not be fully satisfied. When the siege 
ended, Yorktown was in ruins. "One cannot," 
wrote General Rochambeau, "walk three steps 
without finding big holes made by bombs, cannon 
balls, splinters, barely covered graves, arms and 
legs of blacks and whites scattered here and there ; 
most of the houses riddled with shot and devoid 
of window panes." 

The Abbe Robin, who was with the French, 



THE END OF THE WAR 163 

was astonished at the number of books scattered 
through this sickening litter. "We found Lord 
Cornwallis in his house," Rochambeau's account 
continues. "His attitude evinced the nobility of 
his soul ... he seemed to say T have noth- 
ing to reproach myself with. I have done my 
duty and defended myself to the utmost.' " 

At two o'clock in the afternoon of October 19, 
1 78 1, almost four years to a day from the time 
Burgoyne surrendered his sword, the French and 
Americans were drawn up in parallel lines facing 
each other. The French wore their full-dress 
uniforms; the Continental Army was also in its 
best, the bravery of the torn and ragged shirts 
and breeches in which it had fought its hardest 
battles. Some of the men were shoeless, all were 
tattered. Baron Closen noticed that as the Brit- 
ish marched between these lines to lay down their 
arms, they were respectful to the French, but 
showed marked disdain for their American cap- 
tors, calling them by "the nickname of Yanckey 
Dudle." 'What does it matter?" he moralized. 
"They are the more to be praised and show the 
greater valor, fighting as they do, so badly 
equipped." The Americans showed a marked 
gentleness, too, in excluding all mere sight-seers 
from the ceremony of surrender, in order to 
lessen its humiliation. Not a cheer or a sound of 



164 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

rejoicing was heard as the English laid down 
their arms. 

The terms granted them were the same that 
they had given General Lincoln at Charleston; 
and in order that poetic justice might be fulfilled, 
it was that officer who received the sword of Gen- 
eral O'Hara, who represented Cornwallis. With 
the freemasonry of generous warriors, Rocham- 
beau invited the defeated British commander to 
dinner, and contrived to offer him a loan of 
money. 

"The rest of the war," says an American his- 
torian, "was fought in Parliament." It was hard 
for Britain to acknowledge defeat; but quarrels 
had broken out afresh upon the Continent, and 
England found herself obliged to fight France and 
Spain and Holland as well as the United States; 
with Sweden and other neutral powers decidedly 
unfriendly. In view of this, she could not hope 
to continue a struggle in which experience had 
proved the full truth of General Howe's warning 
that at least half a hundred thousand men were 
needed. In February, 1782, Parliament con- 
sented to a peace; and on September 3, 1783, a 
treaty was signed that acknowledged the full and 
complete independence of the United States. 

So the impossible came to pass. Spirit and 
determination triumphed over material lack of 



THE END OF THE WAR 165 

all kinds, and the "grandest of contests," as La- 
fayette called it, was won, — won, as far as battles 
were concerned, by an almost uninterrupted series 
of American defeats. The thing fought for had 
grown from a mere quarrel about money into an 
ideal of government, trite enough now, but up to 
that time rarely imagined and never achieved in 
the world's history : the idea of a free people liv- 
ing under conditions where right, and not might, 
prevailed, where every person, rich and poor, was 
equally entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness"; and, in addition, to as much of 
worldly gain as his talents permitted him to earn. 
Though the English pretended to scorn them, 
they had found in these pioneer foemen enemies 
not to be lightly esteemed, men of the same stock, 
to whom the American woods had taught agility 
of mind and muscle, and a great self-reliance. 
During the contest they had turned the most un- 
likely things to account. They had fought be- 
hind breastworks of cornstalks, and in Canada 
behind walls made of ice. Smallpox and chills 
and fever, fog and storm had battled against them 
as well as for them ; yet they appeared to pay no 
more heed to them than they did to the forests, 
which hindered them no more than the birds of 
the air. They went where no trained soldiers 
could follow. They lived on husks or on dainties 



1 66 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

as occasion demanded. One officer reported that 
for several days his men satisfied their hunger on 
peaches. Washington wrote that his soldiers 
had eaten every kind of horse- food, except hay. 

We always come back to Washington, the 
steadfast central figure in the changing picture of 
the time. "A soldier born," as has been said of 
him; "with resolution to face what any man 
durst," as he said of himself. Tenacious of pur- 
pose, vigilant, and resourceful, it was he who ac- 
complished the impossible, not only the task of 
making a victorious army out of will-o'-the-wisp 
soldiers, here to-day and gone to-morrow, unpaid, 
poorly equipped, and often hungry, but in keep- 
ing the confidence and goodwill of thirteen criti- 
cal commonwealths through long years of what 
must have seemed at the time, disheartening mil- 
itary failure. 

A strong nature, with passions held in check by 
reason, he could be just in his decisions, even 
harsh when he felt circumstances demanded it, 
as when he approved Andre's death sentence. At 
other times he let mercy have the upper hand, but 
only so far as he thought wise for the cause. For 
example, when it was necessary to threaten re- 
taliation for British outrages, he ordered that 
four British officers among his prisoners draw 
lots for death. The choice fell upon a mere lad 



THE END OF THE WAR 167 

of nineteen, young Captain Asgill. He was 
never executed. Probably Washington never in- 
tended that he should be, but the sentence was 
kept hanging over him till near the end of the war. 
It is a question whether the lad or his friends saw 
any mercy in this long-continued suspense. 

On the battle-field Washington showed an al- 
most phenomenal indifference to bullets. He an- 
swered an officer who ventured to remonstrate 
with him for exposing himself unduly with the 
courteous, but withering rebuke, "Colonel Cobb, 
if you are afraid, you are at liberty to retire." 
Equally calm under the most grilling test of slow 
waiting and hope deferred, patient under great 
provocation, his character seems scarcely human. 
Yet we can be sure that he was no effigy of a man, 
with a steel-engraving smile, but a very strong 
and very hard-pressed human soul, driven to the 
point where nerves were raw. Those bursts of 
scorching anger, the more terrible for long re- 
pression, flaming out at some breach of trust be- 
tray how great was the strain. 

In matters of official business he was a hard 
taskmaster, expecting his aides to give their time 
day in and day out, with the same unwearied per- 
sistence that he displayed himself. But he had 
imagination enough most of the time to realize 
that it might be harder for them than for himself. 



168 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Sometimes the strain was too great, even for his 
strong self-control. His parting with his be- 
loved aide-de-camp, Alexander Hamilton, was 
due, according to Hamilton, to a sudden flare-up 
of impatience on the part of Washington and an 
answering bit of temper on his own. He wrote 
his father-in-law : 

I am no longer a member of the General's family. Two 
days ago the General and I passed each other on the 
stairs ; he told me he wanted to speak to me — I answered 
that I would wait upon him immediately. I went below 
and delivered Mr. Tilghman a letter to be sent to the 
commissary. . . . Returning to the General I was stopped 
on the way by the Marquis de Lafayette, and we con- 
versed together about a minute on a matter of business. 
He can testify how impatient I was to get back ; and that I 
left him in a manner which, but for our intimacy, would 
have been more than abrupt. Instead of finding the Gen- 
eral, as is usual, in his room, I met him at the head of 
the stairs, accosting me in an angry tone, "Colonel Ham- 
ilton," he said, "you have kept me waiting at the head of 
the stairs these ten minutes; — I must tell you, sir, you 
treat me with disrespect." I replied without petulancy, 
but with decision, "I am not conscious of it, sir, but since 
you have thought it necessary to tell me so, we part." 
"Very well, sir," he said, "if it be your choice," or some- 
thing to that effect, and we separated. I sincerely be- 
lieve my absence which gave so much umbrage, did not 
last two minutes. In less than an hour after Tilghman 
came to me in the General's name, assuring me of his 
great confidence in my abilities, integrity, usefulness, &c. ; 



THE END OF THE WAR 169 

and of his desire, in a candid conversation to heal the 
difference which could not have happened but for a mo- 
ment of passion. 

A handsome apology certainly, considering 
their relative ages and rank; but the younger man, 
very much on his dignity, refused the proffered in- 
terview, though intimating his willingness to con- 
tinue his duties until a successor could be found, 
adding with boyish hauteur "that in the meantime 
it depended upon him to let our behavior to each 
other be the same as if nothing had happened." 
It was an answer that, in the circumstances, must 
have called for some self-control on the part of 
the general. Very likely both Washington and 
Hamilton were sorry when the actual time of 
parting came ; but the elder could scarcely be ex- 
pected to make further advances, or the younger 
ask to be retained. 

Even the bit of injustice in this is welcome, as 
showing what a very human sort of man the fa- 
ther of our country really was. No wonder he 
grew old with all his care during these years of 
war. Visitors still described his erect figure and 
noble bearing, but they were almost sure to write 
now about his eyes "retiring inward" or being 
"pensive" until roused, when they became very 
bright. He himself said, fumbling for his 
glasses, to read some communication to or from 



170 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Congress, "I have grown old and gray in your 
service, and now it appears I am growing blind." 
He gave the whole strength of his life to the 
struggle, and by doing so, he gave a nation its 
chance to live. 

The conflict grew increasingly harsh as the 
struggle advanced. General Gage had scarcely 
made war at all, and Howe's campaigns, Hessians 
included, were almost courteous compared with 
the measures of later commanders. On both 
sides there were cruel reprisals upon the guilty, 
and outrages upon individual persons whose only 
offence lay in their sincere political beliefs. 
There were instances innumerable of heroism, 
sometimes amusing, often pathetic. Big, red- 
haired "Moll Pitcher" of Monmouth, stepping 
forward to take her gunner-husband's place when 
he fell; the white- faced mistress of a Southern 
plantation firing a burning arrow into the roof of 
her own home rather than see it shelter her ene- 
mies; and Betsy Ross setting her stitches in the 
flag, show in how many ways women had the will 
and the strength to serve. 

The types of men who fought were as varied 
as leaves upon the trees. Lads of seventeen and 
their grandfathers fought side by side in the com- 
panies of minute-men. Slaves fought gallantly 
in New Jersey to win freedom for their masters, 



THE END OF THE WAR 171 

though in South Carolina the proposal to arm 
them against Charleston's hour of need was bit- 
terly resented and denied. Preachers became 
members of the church militant, indeed. Some- 
times they mounted their pulpits behind rows of 
loaded muskets laid out ready for instant use. 
One, immortalized by Bret Harte in verse, dashed 
into a church when the wadding for guns unex- 
pectedly gave out and, returning with his arms 
full of hymn-books, flung them on the ground, 
crying: "Put Watts into them, boys! Give 'em 
Watts!" 

Daniel Morgan, fabulously strong, brought his 
band of Irish riflemen, who were fabulously ex- 
pert, men who never missed shooting a squirrel 
in the head at three hundred yards and who wore 
the words "Liberty or Death" painted on the 
breasts of their hunting-shirts. Sevier and 
other leaders as capable came out of that country 
behind the Alleghanies which New England af- 
fected to regard as an uninhabited wilderness, 
but without whose help it would have gone hard 
with the patriot cause in the South. In the 
North, Israel Putnam, already fifteen times 
wounded in the French and Indian War, whose 
combats with wolves and Indians had passed into 
legend, left his tavern to keep itself and his plow 
to rust in the furrow while he hurried to the front. 



172 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Nathanael Greene, blacksmith son of a Quaker, 
turned his back on his forge and the peaceful re- 
ligion of his father to become, next to Washing- 
ton, the best general of the Continental Army. 
Philip Schuyler, that man of sound sense, but too 
much frankness for his own good, planted that 
Gates might reap, though the wrong was righted 
when time revealed which was the truer man. 
Foreigners, to whom we owed so much, like La- 
fayette and Steuben and Pulaski, joined us as in- 
dividual men to fight for liberty, or came like the 
generous and open-handed Rochambeau with an 
army at their backs. It was Rochambeau in the 
final hours before Yorktown, when our Contin- 
ental soldiers were murmuring for lack of pay 
long overdue, who advanced a large sum out of 
his own stores. 

Thousands, in exalted and humble places alike, 
knew how to live and how to die. Young Cap- 
tain Nathan Hale, arrested within the British 
lines and roughly hurried to a spy's death, with- 
out the benefit of clergy, walked with head high, 
regretting only that he had not more lives to give 
to his country. Old General Herkimer, knowing 
that his wound was mortal, settled himself 
against a tree and tranquilly lighted his pipe in 
the midst of an Indian ambush. A private sol- 



THE END OF THE WAR 173 

dier gasped, "I am dying; but don't let the cause 
of liberty expire with me this day!" 

With the exception of a few, so few that they 
may almost be counted on one hand, the record 
of the Continental Army may be written in those 
words Wayne sent to his commander-in-chief 
from Stony Point, "Our officers and men behaved 
like men determined to be free." 



PART III 

WAR OF 1812 

A Fight for Fair Play 



CHAPTER XIV 

AMERICA AFLOAT 

AFTER gaining its victory, the new nation 
settled down to the very difficult task of us- 
ing and not abusing the freedom it had won. 
Having fought for independence, the States did 
not propose to let one bit of it escape them, and 
they speedily began to disagree among them- 
selves, each zealously intent on its own interests 
and quite deaf to those of its neighbors. This 
was just what Great Britain had predicted, 
though she had hoped it might come before the 
end of the war, in time to help the British armies. 
Without a very great stretch of the imagination 
the history of the years immediately following 
the Revolution might come under the head of 
American warfare, though the war was one of 
purposes and not of arms. Finally common sense 
and common decency prevailed. Sensible people 
realized that if they did not reach some sort of 
compromise, all that had been gained would be 
lost. England might even come back across the 
sea and take control. So the wisest men of the 

177 



178 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

country met and agreed upon the Constitution. 
Washington was elected President. The great 
qualities that had made him first in war made him 
first in peace also, and under his steadying guid- 
ance that crisis was safely passed. 

In time, Washington was succeeded by Presi- 
dent John Adams, and he, in turn, by Thomas Jef- 
ferson. Two political parties had sprung up. 
The Federalists, guided by recent experience, saw 
the necessity of a central government strong 
enough to cope with any situation that might 
arise. The Democratic-Republicans held to the 
old idea that the States were supreme, and that 
the central government was merely a matter of 
convenience, not the seat of real power. They 
objected particularly to keeping up a national 
army or navy, believing that such organizations 
fostered a desire to fight and led to tyranny. It 
seemed a danger more theoretical than practical, 
so far as the United States was concerned; for the 
Army had been disbanded by proclamation in 
November, 1783, and the United States Navy had 
never been strong enough to play an important 
part. 

The large naval movements of the Revolution 
had been confined to the French and British fleets 
as they arrived and departed, bringing troops or 
blockading ports. Congress, indeed, got together 



AMERICA AFLOAT 179 

a navy of thirteen ships before the end of 1776; 
and during the war more than fifteen hundred 
small American vessels were fitted out at public 
or private expense to run the blockade and prey 
on British commerce, but these could hardly be 
called an American navy. They were wonder- 
fully successful, inflicting great annoyance on the 
enemy and bringing into American ports many 
valuable cargoes. The risks were great; when 
they succeeded, the profits were immense; and 
successful or unsuccessful, the incidents of chase 
and flight and capture were exciting in the ex- 
treme. The very mention of the capture of the 
Serapis by the Bonhomme Richard under John 
Paul Jones off the coast of Scotland, calls to mind 
a wild night of battle, first with the enemy, then 
with the waves, unexcelled by the most thrilling 
pages of fiction. 

Perhaps the opponents of a navy saw in this 
kind of life a peculiar temptation to Americans 
with their liking for quick results and dramatic 
action. At any rate the bugaboo of an American 
navy, as sinful and expensive and sure to draw 
us into trouble abroad, was one that the Demo- 
cratic-Republicans delighted to use for campaign 
purposes. Their party grew, and came into 
power when Jefferson took his oath as President 
in March, 1801. It is rather amusing that the 



180 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

first time the United States went to war after it 
became a nation was while he was President, that 
it was a naval war, and against a foe half-way 
around the globe. It is interesting, too, that our 
young country went to war to right a wrong that 
stronger nations, nearer the offenders, refused 
to tackle. 

The offenders were the Barbary pirates. Trip- 
oli, Tunis, Algiers, and. Morocco held possession 
of the coast of Africa where it dominates the 
Straits of Gibraltar, that narrow strip of water 
through which three fourths of the world's com- 
merce had to pass. There was no other spot on 
the globe so well fitted for the trade of piracy. 
The waves of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean 
were constantly bringing them plunder. All 
they had to do was to reach down their hands and 
take it, then retreat with it into the desert. 
Nothing came amiss to them. They could use 
ships; they could sell goods; they could either 
make slaves of their prisoners or hold them for 
ransom. They had been doing this for centuries, 
ever since old Pirate Dragut captured Tripoli 
from the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. 
When they refrained from such acts they exacted 
tribute for that also, and this the kings of the 
earth had paid, willingly or unwillingly. Why 



AMERICA AFLOAT 181 

strong nations endured such extortion is hard to 
say; but they did endure it until our fledgling 
country undertook this bit of police-duty that 
others shunned. 

It was not entirely unselfish. We proposed to 
sail and trade where we would, and like the rest 
of the world, we had suffered. For sixteen 
years our American sailors had been made slaves, 
though like the rest we had paid tribute. It is 
hard to believe now that it ever happened ; but in 
the last year of Washington's presidency a treaty 
was signed with Algiers by which the United 
States agreed to pay a large sum for the release of 
all Americans in captivity, and promised more if 
our ships were let alone. "The terms," wrote 
Oliver Ellsworth, "though humiliating, are as 
moderate as there is reason to expect." Other 
treaties were made with other members of the 
band, but they demanded more and more. In 
1800, Tripoli asked for a ship and required Cap- 
tain Bainbridge to carry the Algerian ambassador 
and his mountain of luggage to Constantinople, a 
service he performed most unwillingly. Next 
year the Bey of Tunis desired forty cannon and 
ten thousand stands of arms. As these were not 
sent him, war was declared; and before Jefferson, 
who hated a navy, had been President two 



182 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

months, he found himself giving orders that led 
to the spectacular sea-fights known as the War 
with Tripoli. 

Two thirds of our available ships, four of the 
six United States vessels then in commission, 
were sent to subdue the outlaws. For two years 
pirates were chased and gave chase, but always 
managed to escape into harbors where they were 
safe. The Americans always followed them to 
the danger line, and at last one frigate crossed it. 
On November I, 1803, Captain Bainbridge, who 
had carried the Algerian ambassador on his jour- 
ney with such ill grace, pursued a corsair into the 
very harbor of Tripoli and ran upon a sunken 
rock. In an instant his ship, the Philadelphia, 
was surrounded by enemy boats like birds of prey. 
He and his men were made prisoners, and plun- 
dered even of their clothing, before they reached 
shore. Most of them were made slaves. Bain- 
bridge, a prisoner in Tripoli, watched helplessly 
while the Philadelphia was being refitted under 
her new owners. He got hold of writing mate- 
rials and, just on the chance that it might fall into 
helpful hands, wrote a letter showing how she 
could be recaptured before she left the harbor. 
Providence carried it straight to the man for the 
task, young Stephen Decatur. He was only a 
lieutenant in command of a ketch of forty or fifty 



AMERICA AFLOAT 183 

tons, captured from the pirates and renamed the 
Intrepid. With too many men and not enough 
food aboard, the spirit of officers and crew 
made up for everything, and they sailed joyously 
on the adventure. Entering the harbor of Trip- 
oli by moonlight on the sixteenth of February, 
Decatur steered straight for the Philadelphia, 
his men lying hidden. The masts of the ship 
had not yet been put in place, but her guns were 
loaded and shotted, a detail that would have made 
no difference had Decatur known it. Some 
Turks on the Philadelphia watched the ap- 
proach, mildly curious. Prompted by Decatur, 
his Greek pilot told a tale of hard luck. The 
ketch belonged to Malta, was engaged in trade, 
had lost her anchors in a storm, and desired 
to lie beside the frigate until morning. Unsus- 
pecting, they lowered a boat and sent Decatur a 
line with which his hidden seamen brought the 
two close together. It was only at sight of the 
Intrepid' s anchors that the trick was discovered. 
But one more strong pull brought them along 
side; the "Amerikanos" sprang from their hiding- 
places and swarmed over the rail, while the Turks 
rushed below or dived into the sea. Ten min- 
utes later the Americans were in possession and, 
since they could not take the ship away with them, 
had set it on fire. It burned so swiftly that for 



184 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

a breathless moment it seemed that the Intrepid 
must burn too. But a sword-stroke cut the tan- 
gled hawsers, a vigorous push set her free, and 
her men burst into a mighty cheer. Up to that 
moment there had been almost complete silence, 
the Americans being too busy and the Turks too 
paralyzed for shouting. Now the harbor rang 
with noise, and shots flew from Turkish batteries 
and ships, even from the overheated guns of the 
Philadelphia, as the Intrepid sped out of the har- 
bor in the glare of the flames. 

Five months later Admiral Preble appeared be- 
fore Tripoli with fifteen ships, eight of them small 
craft borrowed from the Neapolitans. On Au- 
gust 3 they attacked the enemy's gunboats, 
boarded three large ones, and captured them after 
hand-to-hand fights, and sank others in a battle 
that lasted three hours. Decatur was in this ac- 
tion also and himself slew the Tripolitan com- 
mander who had just killed his brother, James 
Decatur, after pretending to surrender. Within 
a week there was a second attack, and on August 
28 a general engagement occurred between thir- 
teen Tripolitan galleys and gunboats and eight of 
Admiral Preble's fleet. Again on September 3 a 
fourth engagement was fought, in which seventy 
heavy guns were trained upon Admiral Preble's 
flag-ship, the Constitution. Two nights after 



AMERICA AFLOAT 185 

this the Intrepid, set apart for sacrifice as a fire- 
ship, sailed into the harbor again, loaded with one 
hundred barrels of gunpowder, and many shot 
and shells. Not one of her volunteer crew es- 
caped alive. 

After many exploits of this character the war 
came to a satisfactory close in 1805. But de- 
spite pardonable national pride in our sailors, the 
idea that a navy was a dangerous and expensive 
luxury was firmly planted in Democratic minds. 
That party continued in power, and one fine 
morning in June, 181 2, when James Monroe was 
President, the country woke to find itself at war 
with England. This was a different matter from 
fighting corsairs in the harbor of Tripoli, and the 
nation realized that it had almost nothing in the 
way of ships except a few gunboats for harbor 
defense. 

"Free Trade and Sailors' Rights" were the five 
words in which Henry Clay summed up the rea- 
sons for declaring war. Although our navy was 
small, we had many sailors, for our merchant- 
ships and our seamen went everywhere. Lately 
England had been interfering with both. France 
and England were quarreling as usual, and as 
part of that quarrel England had ordered that 
neutral ships must not carry goods from the West 
Indies to France or to any country that sided with 



186 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

her. France, in retaliation, forbade neutral ships 
from entering English harbors. We were a neu- 
tral country wishing to trade with both; so we 
suffered first from one and then from the other. 
After England's great victory over France at the 
battle of Trafalgar, the French had no more 
power to trouble us, but the English acted in a 
way even more galling, for they stopped our ves- 
sels wherever they found them and, pretending 
that all sailors who spoke English and had no 
papers to prove they were Americans must be 
British subjects, carried off such as they chose to 
add to the British navy. About four thousand 
cases of this kind occurred between 1803 and 
1810. 

This had its flattering side; England would 
never have claimed them had they not been good 
sailors; but it was quite as high-handed as the 
acts of the Barbary pirates. The climax of inso- 
lence was reached in 1807, when the British ship 
Leopard overhauled our frigate, the Chesapeake, 
just outside the port of Norfolk, at our very 
doors, and, on the refusal of the American com- 
mander to give up his men, opened fire, killing 
three and wounding eighteen of the crew. The 
country was furious, but, being in no condition to 
go to war, had to content itself with a very tardy 



AMERICA AFLOAT 187 

and half-hearted apology offered by the British 
four years afterward. 

Congress eased its feelings by declaring an em- 
bargo. That is, it forbade vessels to sail from 
the United States to any foreign port. The ob- 
ject was to cripple Great Britain's large trade, for 
she was selling goods to us with one hand while 
taking sailors from us with the other. But two 
years' experience showed that it troubled Eng- 
land very little and bade fair to ruin us, since we 
were far more dependent on English goods than 
England was upon anything we had to sell her. 
In 1809 the embargo was repealed, and the less 
strict non-intercourse law substituted, which for- 
bade trade with England and France, but per- 
mitted it elsewhere. 

Then came a season when our Government was 
led to believe that if we would not enforce this 
non-intercourse act, England, on her part, would 
stop searching our ships and seizing our sailors. 
Word went out that all was well again. "Mr. 
Madison's nightcaps," as the tar-barrels were 
called, that had been placed over the tops of masts 
to protect them while the ships lay idly in port, 
were knocked off in the presence of excited 
crowds, and their fragments eagerly scrambled 
for by small boys and carried off to make jubilant 



188 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

bonfires. More than a thousand American mer- 
chant vessels shook out their white sails and de- 
parted. Then, when they were well out to sea, it 
was discovered that it was all a mistake, and that 
England stopped more of our merchantmen and 
took more of our sailors than ever. 

The embargo had been bad enough. Its op- 
ponents called it "Terrapin policy" because, af ter 
the manner of that lowly animal, we had retired 
within our shell when struck, instead of showing 
fight. Having tried that method and also non- 
intercourse, and failed with both, there seemed 
nothing left now except war, unless we were 
willing to take orders from England and stop sail- 
ing the seas. President Madison hesitated long. 
He had studied the matter carefully and realized 
better than most Americans how ill-prepared we 
were for a struggle with a sea power. Although 
Congress had been a little more liberal in voting 
money for naval expenses since the Leopard's 
attack upon the Chesapeake, we had only five ves- 
sels ready to sail, and about twenty on paper. 
England's navy numbered a thousand ships. 

The war party declared that this made no dif- 
ference, since it was not to be a naval war. 
England had her hands full fighting Napoleon. 
We could invade Canada and dictate peace at 
Halifax before British soldiers had time to land 



AMERICA AFLOAT 189 

in this country. In this rosy dream the advocates 
of war counted on the sympathies of Tories who 
had departed from among us at the time of the 
Revolution, and also upon the help of French 
Canadians, — hopes that experience showed to be 
quite vain. The Tories were as strongly Tory as 
when they left us, and the French Canadians 
thought the quarrel no concern of theirs. But 
Henry Clay, who was the leader of the war party 
in Congress, made speeches bristling with ag- 
gression, and in response to his eloquence, Con- 
gress voted to increase the regular army and to 
accept a force of fifty thousand volunteers. Fi- 
nally, on June 18, the President declared war. 

The war party now felt that New England be- 
haved very badly. She had larger shipping in- 
terests than any other part of the country, and 
consequently had suffered more. Men of her 
region had been extremely critical of the Presi- 
dent for his caution; but war was no sooner de- 
clared than they grew suddenly timid, called it un- 
just and an invasion of their rights, refused to 
allow their militia regiments to do duty outside of 
state limits, and openly discussed withdrawing 
from the Union. Bells were tolled; Massachu- 
setts proclaimed a fast-day; and in one commu- 
nity, where a fife-and-drum corps paraded hope- 
fully three times around the town-house to fire 



190 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

enthusiasm and encourage enlistments, only one 
lone man responded. 

But this behavior of New England was no more 
astonishing than many other things that hap- 
pened. Most astonishing of all was the fact that 
the war refused to stay on land. Even our long 
Canadian border became, as far as this war was 
concerned, a waterfront, lakes Ontario, Erie, St. 
Clair, Champlain, with the Niagara and Detroit 
rivers proving far more important than the 
wooded solitudes of Maine and New Hampshire. 
What little fighting our army accomplished was 
not at all to its credit, while from the nucleus 
of five ships commanded by Commodore Rogers, 
which were ready and waiting and set sail within 
an hour after he heard that war was declared, 
naval glory seemed to roll out toward all quarters 
of the globe. 

Our waterfront was not only the long Cana- 
dian line, and the Atlantic coast from the Bay of 
Fundy down to the southern limits of Georgia. 
Florida was still Spanish; but our coast began 
again in the Gulf of Mexico and continued as far 
as the mouth of the Mississippi. The British had 
two points from which to attack us. Bermuda 
and neighboring islands provided them with a 
base from which to menace the South, while from 
Halifax they could attack our New England fish- 



AMERICA AFLOAT 191 

eries, send provisions to Quebec for use on the 
Canadian frontier, and make things unpleasant 
for our coast towns. We had not only to keep 
British ships from reaching Halifax or entering 
the St. Lawrence, but to intercept those bound 
for the West Indies, and to harass British com- 
merce wherever found, — a fairly large contract 
for five ships. 

But the number of our ships did not stay at 
five. Our merchant vessels and their well- 
trained crews speedily entered the navy or took 
out letters as privateersmen, as had been done 
during the Revolution. The latter followed Brit- 
ish trade to all parts of the world, and soon the 
coasts of England, of the continent of Europe, of 
the West Indies, South America, even islands in 
the Pacific as far off as Polynesia, echoed to the 
sound of our guns. 

In encounters with vessels of the English navy 
it happened that geography was once more on 
our side. Ocean winds and ocean currents 
cause ships to sail in sea-lanes as armies travel on 
roads; and the prevailing winds made it neces- 
sary for all British war vessels, whether ordered 
to Halifax or the West Indies, to travel directly 
toward our shores. Those bound for the South 
had to travel the length of our Atlantic coast. 
We did not wait for them to come to us, but went 



192 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

out to meet them. It was still the day of sails 
and of wonderful seamanship. Even when not 
strong enough to engage the enemy, our ships ac- 
quitted themselves well. In the very first weeks 
of the war, Captain Hull led five British com- 
manders a most exciting three-days' chase in al- 
most dead calm, using every artifice at a sailor's 
command and escaping at last in a providential 
gale of wind and rain. A month later, on August 
19, having a fair chance, ship against ship, he 
fought with one of these commanders the famous 
battle between the Constitution and the British 
Guerriere, burned the latter, and returned to Bos- 
ton. On October 18, a thousand miles farther 
south, Jacob Jones had his dramatic fight by 
moonlight with the Frolic. When Americans 
from the Wasp boarded her after forty minutes' 
struggle in tremendous seas, they found only four 
men alive, one seaman sticking grimly to his post 
at the wheel, and three wounded officers. In that 
same October, Decatur in the frigate United 
States captured the Macedonian and brought her 
into Newport as a prize; and on December 29, 
Bainbridge, now in command of the Constitution, 
captured the British frigate Java off the coast of 
Brazil. In the first six months of the war Eng- 
land surrendered to us more of her ships than 
she had lost to the rest of the world in twenty 



AMERICA AFLOAT 193 

years. She had begun by calling our vessels "fir- 
built things with a bit of striped bunting at their 
mast-head." It was a terrible blow to her pride 
not only to lose the ships, but to surrender them 
to Americans, who, as the British minister at 
Washington said at the time war broke out, 
"were, generally speaking, not a people we should 
be proud to acknowledge as our relations." 

As was the case in the war with the Barbary 
pirates, these naval battles of the War of 1812 
might have been fought in the days of the Cru- 
sades, so far as modern ways of sea warfare 
are concerned. Torpedoes had been tried and 
discarded during the Revolution. They were 
thought not only unsatisfactory, but a dishonor- 
able means of making war. Steam was begin- 
ning to be used, but not for serious work like this. 
Before the war ended, the Fulton, with its ram 
and a few heavy guns, — great-grandfather of 
armored battleships, — had been launched, but it 
came too late to influence the result. It was all 
a matter of sails and seamanship and skill. 

Man for man, British and Yankee sailors were 
equally brave, but they showed differences of 
training very similar to those between British and 
American soldiers on land. As a rule the Brit- 
ish sailors had been taught to do just one thing, 
while the Yankees, having practised their calling 



i 9 4 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

on merchant ships from childhood, were handy at 
all parts of their trade. They could turn from 
fighting to ship-carpentry, could set sails or 
fire guns. They were particularly good at firing 
guns; but for inferiority in this regard the 
British Government and not the British tar 
was to blame. The Government limited strictly 
the number of shot that could be "wasted" in 
mere practice; while Americans were forever 
aiming and firing their cannon, as well as prac- 
tising at close range with small-arms and single- 
stick. They had also recently adopted a new in- 
vention, sights on their cannon. 

Usually the fights were of the old sea-rover 
type, one or two ships on a side firing a few 
rounds, then closing for a hand-to-hand struggle. 
The sound of grappling-irons, the clash of cut- 
lasses, and the ring of weapons long out-of-date 
echo in accounts of these battles, coming to us 
across the century in words whose very strange- 
ness brings a thrill, but whose meaning we have 
well-nigh forgotten. There was an immense 
amount of courage displayed, and an immense 
zest for the sea life. British and Americans 
fought and captured and fought again until their 
turn came to haul down their flag. The Essex, 
one of our famous old ships, pushed on alone into 
the Pacific, broke up the British whaling industry 



AMERICA AFLOAT 195 

there, and lived a year and a half on the enemy 
before her hour struck, off Valparaiso in March, 
1814. 

On the Canadian frontier the contest was as 
much one of ship-building as of ship-fighting, the 
object being to get complete control of the lakes 
and harbors. This could be done either by cap- 
turing the enemy's boats or by keeping them 
blockaded in port; so when one side launched a 
new ship the other tried to offset it by launching 
a bigger and better one. The preliminary war- 
fare of planes and saws went on for months, but 
when it gave way to powder and shell, the fresh- 
water sailors showed that in bravery they were 
not one whit behind their brothers of the high 
seas. 

The difference in level between lakes Erie and 
Ontario, with Niagara Falls between, made it 
necessary to maintain separate fleets on each, 
which doubled the labor. All supplies, except the 
growing timber, had to be brought from a great 
distance. England brought hers across the At- 
lantic. The Americans transported theirs over 
very bad roads from Eastern cities. On Lake 
Ontario, Kingston and Sackett's Harbor were 
the respective headquarters of the British and 
Americans; on Lake Erie, the Americans were 
at Erie and the British at Detroit. The lake 



196 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

service was particularly hard and its inducements 
small; so the American sailors who fought in 
those lake battles were a very mixed company, 
who had often made great personal sacrifice to 
enter the war. It is said that one quarter of the 
four hundred and thirty men under Perry in the 
battle of Lake Erie were negroes, and many of 
the rest were state militia, while, on the other 
side, Barclay had Indians and British regulars 
as well as sailors and frontiersmen. Oliver Haz- 
ard Perry, who commanded our fleet in that 
battle of September 10, 1813, had been a mid- 
shipman in the war against the pirates. His gal- 
lant figure in this fight and the modern version 
of Caesar's old message of victory which he wrote 
upon the back of an envelope when it was over 
■are familiar to all of us. But there were other 
lake fights quite as thrilling. That in Plattsburg 
Bay, for example, on September 11, 1814, was 
not only one of the most important naval engage- 
ments of the war, but full of incredible details. 

All hands knelt on the deck of McDonough's 
flagship as the enemy's fleet approached. The 
moment of prayer was cut short by a British shot 
which liberated the ship's pet rooster from his 
coop and sent him crowing to the top of a gun. 
The sailors laughed and sprang to their posts, and 
fought until the masts of the Saratoga were in 



AMERICA AFLOAT 197 

splinters. The very first broadside from the en- 
emy disabled forty of his men and McDonough 
worked at his guns like a common sailor. The 
spanker boom, cut in two by an English round- 
shot, fell upon him, knocking him senseless. He 
recovered consciousness and began again, when 
another shot decapitated a man near by and drove 
his head full in McDonough's face. On the 
Ticonderoga, another of our ships, the matches 
were found to be useless, but a young midship- 
man of sixteen, named Hiram Paulding, with 
Yankee ingenuity fired those under his charge by 
having pistols flashed at them, while the com- 
mander of the ship walked the tafrrail with the 
utmost coolness through showers of lead, direct- 
ing the firing and loading. 

The British galleys were handled with equal 
skill ; and at the end of the fight their best boat, 
the Confiance, which had been considered a match 
for the entire American fleet,* lay with 105 shots 
in her hull and half her crew dead and wounded. 
Decidedly, this was a war in which neither friend 
nor foe could ignore the United States Navy. 



CHAPTER XV 

A CAPTURED CAPITAL 

THE American Army, meanwhile, had been 
the cause of great disappointment. One 
writer has said that the War of 1812 "seemed de- 
signed by Providence to teach Americans that 
free institutions do not of themselves create 
trained soldiers"; and that its battle-fields were 
"strewn with the dead reputations of command- 
ing officers." The experiment of getting along 
without any military force had been discontinued 
after two years, when a new United States Army 
was created to replace the Continental soldiers, 
who had been mustered out. At the time that the 
second war with England was declared, this force 
was supposed to have a strength of thirty-five 
thousand; but in reality it was the merest skele- 
ton of an organization, with many important 
parts of the skeleton missing. 

President Madison hastened to appoint new 
officers and to give the skeleton life and strength; 
but, as Jefferson once sorrowfully remarked, 
"The Creator has not thought proper to mark 
those on the forehead who are of stuff to make 

198 



A CAPTURED CAPITAL 199 

good generals," and only bitter experience could 
sort them out. Almost thirty years had passed 
since the close of the Revolution, and the few 
officers of that war who were still alive were 
either too old for active service or had sunk into 
habits of intemperance and sloth. As for the 
rank and file of the new soldiers and of the mili- 
tia regiments, those same American character- 
istics of personal independence that had dis- 
pleased Wolfe stood in the way of discipline. 
Each man prided himself on being able to defend 
his home and on knowing how to shoot, but he 
did not relish being ordered to do either; so, 
though made up of the best possible material, the 
army, as a whole, was little more than an amiable 
mob. 

The boasted invasion of Canada began badly. 
General William Hull, one of the officers of Revo- 
lutionary days, crossed from Detroit into the 
province of Ontario with two thousand men on 
July 12, 1812, but quickly retreated and surren- 
dered the whole of Michigan territory without 
firing a shot. This endangered the entire North- 
west Territory, the fate of which remained in 
doubt until after Perry's victory on Lake Erie 
in the following year. Hull was tried by court- 
martial and sentenced to be shot, but pardoned 
because of his fine record in the earlier war. 



200 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Fortunately, the news of his disgraceful surren- 
der reached England at the same moment with 
the news of the capture of the Guerricre at sea 
by his nephew, Isaac Hull, and to the English 
mind, sensitive to naval power, the loss of one 
battleship quite overbalanced the gain of much 
territory. 

There was a terrible massacre at Fort Dear- 
born (Chicago), in which women and children, as 
well as soldiers, perished. Mackinac passed into 
British hands; and although a second attempt to 
invade Canada in the neighborhood of Niagara 
was not so disastrous as the first one, it accom- 
plished nothing except to reveal the quality of a 
few poor generals, and to earn for the worst of 
them, Alexander Smythe, the name of Von Blad- 
der, because of his ridiculous bombastic procla- 
mations. 

Hoping to stay this bad luck, it was proposed 
to make a general of Henry Clay, who was im- 
mensely popular and had the power by his ring- 
ing speeches of raising hope and enthusiasm. 
"But what shall we do without Clay in Con- 
gress ?" was asked in alarm, and he was left where 
he was sorely needed. In time, the war devel- 
oped fine officers like Jacob Brown, a born gen- 
eral, though in civil life he was a Quaker farmer ; 
Winfield Scott, the only one of our American gen- 



A CAPTURED CAPITAL 201 

erals to play a conspicuous part in three wars; 
William Henry Harrison, and Andrew Jackson. 
But at the moment the outlook was dark. The 
British bombarded towns in Connecticut and 
Delaware. The salt-works on Cape Cod were 
saved by paying a ransom, and it required not 
only Perry's victory on Lake Erie, but the suc- 
cess of General Harrison at the battle of the 
Thames near Detroit on October 5, 181 3, to 
reestablish American supremacy in the North- 
west. That so considerable a part of the fight- 
ing on the Canadian border took place in the 
neighborhood of Detroit shows how the frontier 
had moved westward since the days of the Revo- 
lution. In the former struggle only the east end 
of Lake Erie had been of military importance. 

The situation in that northwestern region was 
greatly complicated by Indian troubles, which 
were viewed with lively satisfaction, if not actu- 
ally helped on by the British. The Shawnee 
Indians had a powerful leader named Tecumseh, 
one of the greatest of his race. He realized that 
the white people were gradually crowding the 
Indians off their lands, and that once established, 
they never gave back what they had taken. He 
knew that they were already too strong to be 
dealt with by separate tribes, and urged the for- 
mation of a great Indian confederacy that could 



202 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

take a determined stand and rid the country once 
and for all of these white interlopers. He saw, 
too, the advantage of an alliance with the British, 
since they were also unfriendly to American 
settlers. On their part, the British were not 
averse to the help of the Indians. It is said that, 
foreseeing the future war, the British restrained 
.Tecumseh's desire to open hostilities for a year or 
more, to make it fit in with their own plans. At 
any rate, there was an alliance between them, and 
a battle in a January dawn on the River Raisin, 
which turned into a massacre of peculiar cruelty. 
Later this was avenged at Harrison's battle of 
the Thames on the Canadian side of the line. 
In this battle Tecumseh was slain, and General 
Harrison gained a reputation which later made 
him President of the United States. 

For two years the war continued in this way, 
with no really marked gains on either side. It 
was bad enough, but after all not so bad as it 
looked for the Americans. Only the edge of our 
broad country was touched by the English. They 
could no more gain and hold American territory 
than we could gain Canada; and during this 
season of discouragement, General Scott was 
drilling and improving the army. He was the 
most showy and by no means the least important 
military product of our War of 1812, a man 



A CAPTURED CAPITAL 203 

whose life story could easily supply the material 
for half a dozen heroes of fiction. He had turned 
soldier overnight when the country rang with in- 
dignation at the Leopard's attack upon the Chesa- 
peake, throwing up his career as a lawyer and rid- 
ing twenty-five miles between sunset and dawn to 
secure a horse and uniform. During the War 
of 1812 he experienced all the ups and downs of 
an officer's life, from prisoner to successful gen- 
eral ; but the greatest service he rendered at this 
time was by persistence in drill and discipline. 
The Government furnished no textbook or man- 
ual-of-arms to its officers, apparently believing 
that when a soldier enlisted such knowledge came 
to him by inspiration. Scott owned a French 
work on military tactics, and out of this he im- 
provised one of his own, from which he drilled 
his troops mercilessly ten and twelve hours a day 
when weather permitted. The excellent results 
were so marked that the Government adopted his 
system as its own, and it remained in use until 
the Civil War, when new inventions in guns made 
a change necessary. 

So things went on, with success at sea and 
drudgery and often disaster on land, until 18 14. 
In that year Napoleon's defeat released the vic- 
torious English troops that had been fighting him 
on European battle-fields, and England deter- 



204 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

mined to send over enough of them to carry on 
two American campaigns at once. One army 
was to be sent to the Canadian border, the other 
to the South. McDonough's thrilling fight at 
Plattsburg was against the flotilla which brought 
the northern division of these veterans up Lake 
Champlain in Britain's last effort to penetrate our 
country by way of the Hudson River. There 
was also fierce fighting in the neighborhood of 
Niagara, where General Brown and General 
Scott did their part at the drawn battle of Lundy's 
Lane and at Chippewa. It is not often remem- 
bered that our West Point cadets wear in their 
uniforms a reminder of this last battle. Our 
regular troops were supposed to be clothed in 
blue, but there was not enough blue cloth in the 
whole young country to cover our little army. 
Scott's well-drilled soldiers were in gray, and de- 
ceived by this, General Riall, the British com- 
mander, spoke slightingly of the advancing line 
as "nothing but a body of Buffalo militia." But 
when they were upon him he added with an oath, 
"These are regulars!" and the mistake so costly 
to him has been commemorated by our cadets for 
more than a century. 

The British campaign in the South was directed 
against New Orleans; but in passing, the force 
looked in at Chesapeake Bay. Even after Ad- 



A CAPTURED CAPITAL 205 

miral Cockburn had brought it there, there 
seemed to be some uncertainty as to what it was 
expected to do. Baltimore might be attacked, or 
Washington. Baltimore was the richer town, 
Washington the capital of the United States. It 
was only a straggling forlorn town of a few 
thousand inhabitants, but glory prevailed over 
riches, and General Ross's army of three or four 
thousand men turned toward Washington. 
Commodore Barney of the American squadron 
disembarked his sailors and did what he could 
with them and a handful of militia, to oppose the 
British advance. It was little enough; he was 
speedily captured, and the militia fled in such 
haste that sour wits of the day spoke of the en- 
gagement, not as the Battle of Bladensburg, but 
as the Bladensburg Races. Washington was en- 
tirely without defenses, and Bladensburg is only 
a few miles from the heart of the city. Its in- 
habitants, naturally enough, were in a state of 
panic. All who could get away fled, carrying 
their valuables with them. The papers from the 
state department were bundled into linen bags 
and carted off toward Leesburg. President 
Madison and his cabinet disappeared into the Vir- 
ginia woods, searching for what remained of the 
soldiers. Mrs. Madison stayed in the White 
House until the last minute and then, filling her 



206 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

coach with as much public property as she could 
carry with her, abandoned her own belongings 
to the fate of war and sought a place of safety. 

The British entered the town on the twenty- 
fourth of August, and set fire to the Capitol, the 
treasury, the President's house, the printing- 
office of the one newspaper the capital of the na- 
tion then supported, and some private dwellings. 
Accounts of eye-witnesses tell how Admiral Cock- 
burn, riding a white mare with its black foal 
capering beside him, inquired with malignant 
care for that printing-office, the editor having 
been particularly outspoken. Destruction was 
wide-spread, for, in addition to the damage done 
by the British, the American commander had set 
fire to the navy yard. Next day a terrific storm 
of wind and lightning visited the city, during 
which some of the invaders were killed under 
falling walls. The British departed for Balti- 
more, leaving ruin behind them. It is not a pleas- 
ant picture, and the burning of our capital is an 
episode of which the English have never been 
proud, though in recognition, the regent granted 
General Ross the title of Ross of Bladensburg. 
His descendants bore it after him. He himself 
never knew the honor, for he lost his life within 
the week at Baltimore. 



A CAPTURED CAPITAL 207 

That city was better prepared than Washing- 
ton; and Fort McHenry put up such a spirited 
defense that after a few days Cockburn's fleet 
sailed away to the South, leaving our country the 
richer by a patriotic poem, the "Star-Spangled 
Banner," written by Francis Scott Key as he 
watched through the dark and saw in the dawn 
that the flag was still there. 

The attack upon New Orleans was meant to 
drive Americans out of all Louisiana. In this 
ambitious project the British hoped to unite with 
them the Indians of the region and such French 
and Spanish settlers as were dissatisfied with 
American rule. The authorities at Washington 
could do little to help the city on the Mississippi, 
but they did the one thing needful when they sent 
a tall, angular general of Tennessee militia to 
take command. His name was Andrew Jackson, 
and his military fame had spread in 1813, when 
he conducted a campaign against the Creek In- 
dians. This he had won not only against the 
savages, but against mutiny and starvation 
among his own men. With his eyes blazing, he 
rode along the mutinous line and threatened to 
shoot the first man who turned home. He set 
the example of living upon acorns ; he asked noth- 
ing more of his soldiers than he was willing to 



208 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

endure himself; and he brought them safely 
through a campaign of great hardship to its vic- 
torious close. 

He reached New Orleans early in December 
and immediately set to work every able-bodied 
man, black or white, stopping every activity not 
necessary to the task of defense and carrying this 
on much as he had carried on his fight against 
mutiny, by masterful resolution and heartening 
example. He had at his disposal a very mixed 
force of several thousand men. There were a 
few regulars, but they were raw and new to the 
service. The volunteers were made up of many 
nationalities and every complexion under the sun. 
There were negroes, slave and free. There were 
Frenchmen and Americans of all classes, among 
them smugglers and outlaws like the notorious 
brothers Lafitte, whose past crimes were par- 
doned for the patriotic work they did at this time, 
when they might have sold their services to the 
British. Among the sailors on the two small 
gunboats in the river were Norwegians and 
Swedes and a company of New Englanders. 
Best of all in Jackson's estimation was the band 
of Tennessee volunteers, in leggings and coonskin 
caps, who joined him after a long and muddy 
march on the very day that the British forced 
their way through watery lanes of swamp and 




ANDREW JACKSON 



A CAPTURED CAPITAL 209 

bayou into the Mississippi a few miles below New 
Orleans. These Tennesseeans were the men he 
was used to, the kind with which he had fought 
Indians, and he knew how thoroughly they were 
to be trusted. 

Partly owing to the difficulty of the swampy 
region and partly to the American defense, the 
British had been long in reaching their goal. But 
they were twelve thousand strong, and the best 
soldiers England had. The commander was Ed- 
ward Packenham, brother-in-law of the Duke of 
Wellington, and one of his ablest lieutenants. 
The men with him had fought against Napoleon 
in Spain under Wellington, and under Nelson on 
the Nile. In the preliminary fighting the Ameri- 
cans were forced to give way, and Jackson's two 
gunboats were rendered useless. But the ground 
near the city is low and swampy, and in the final 
battle the British could only advance by a narrow 
bit of land along the river. A flanking attack 
was impossible; the advance had to be made in 
front. Jackson took a canal as his line of de- 
fense, and behind it raised earthworks of Missis- 
sippi mud as high as a man's breast. His can- 
non numbered about a dozen, and his men half 
as many as those of his adversary; but his posi- 
tion and their marksmanship more than compen- 
sated. It was at daybreak on January 8, 181 5, a 



210 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

beautiful Sunday morning, that the British made 
their attack after several days of careful prepara- 
tion. Not knowing the temper of his adversary, 
Packenham threw away some of his usual cau- 
tion. Not knowing anything but obedience and 
courage, the British soldiers advanced against 
Jackson's line again and again. At the end of the 
battle their loss had reached the appalling num- 
ber of twenty-five hundred, against six of Jack- 
son's men killed and thirteen wounded. 

Strictly speaking, this battle should never have 
been fought, for eleven days before it took place 
a treaty of peace had been signed at Ghent. 
Messengers with copies of the treaty were even 
then upon the seas. But the telegraph had not 
yet been invented and the cable was un- 
dreamed-of, and thinking they were still at war, 
the commanders led the battle in which the ter- 
rible loss of life occurred. There were many 
Americans then, as very likely there are many 
now, who could not feel properly shocked at the 
sacrifice, or sorry that the news was delayed until 
the volunteers under Jackson had a chance to test 
their courage against these veterans of Welling- 
ton and to wipe out the stain of less fortunate en- 
gagements earlier in the war. 

The treaty of peace promised little. It did not 
even mention sailors' rights, the real reason for 



A CAPTURED CAPITAL 211 

which the country went to war. But the war 
accomplished much. Never again did England 
attempt to take sailors from our ships, and the 
temper of our fighting had changed her feeling 
about our "desirability" as distant relatives. 

The war did even more for us upon our own 
soil. It awoke in our people a national conscious- 
ness, a sense of being one country, that Ameri- 
cans had lacked before. An apparently insignifi- 
cant detail, yet one really full of significance, is 
that with this sense of national unity there came 
into being that mythical, yet very genuine and 
lovable personage known as Uncle Sam. The 
letters U. S. upon knacksacks and boxes of sup- 
plies gave him birth. Soldiers jokingly gave him 
his name. The contact between militia regiments 
and regulars broadened his fame. Our flag sup- 
plied him with his clothing, and he quickly became 
so real that Indians, crowding around the Presi- 
dent, asked to shake hands with Uncle Sam, who 
is, after all, the embodiment of all we most revere 
in our United States. 



PART IV 

MEXICAN WAR 

A Fight for Conquest 



CHAPTER XVI 

A GENERAL DESPITE POLITICS 

THIRTY-TWO years passed before the 
United States was again officially at war. 
Then we quarreled with our southern neighbors, 
the Mexicans, over admitting Texas as a State to 
our Union. Texas was that portion of Mexico 
lying directly west of Louisiana, but it was 
largely settled by Americans. When Napoleon 
sold Louisiana to President Jefferson, its western 
boundary had been left somewhat vague, and 
from the beginning covetous and adventurous 
spirits claimed that more or less of it belonged 
by right to Louisiana. At that time Texas was 
a Spanish possession, and in 1819, when we ac- 
quired Florida from Spain, our Government 
promised to look upon the Sabine River as the 
western boundary of Louisiana. This was bit- 
terly resented by the people of the region, who 
claimed that the line should be much farther 
west. They said that it was unsafe to have a 
foreign frontier so near the Mississippi River, 
and hinted that England might try to get control 

215 



216 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

of the land in dispute and use it as a base 
from which to attack our free institutions. 
They really meant something quite different; that 
England might use it as a base for an attack 
on slavery, to which England was strongly op- 
posed. Our Southern politicians and planters, 
on the contrary, strongly favored slavery, and 
it was because Texas would add a region 
larger than France to that part of our country 
where slave labor was profitable that they so 
ardently desired to make it a part of our Union. 

The year after we had given our word to con- 
sider the Sabine River the boundary of Louisiana, 
Mexico declared itself independent of Spain and 
set up a turbulent government of its own, in which 
revolution succeeded revolution, and assassina- 
tion became a favorite means of securing power 
and new presidents. Several of these ill-fated 
gentlemen gave grants of land to Americans. 
At the same time the slave-holding interests of 
the South became more and more convinced of 
the desirability of Texas and systematically en- 
couraged settlers to go there. By 1828 the pop- 
ulation of Texas consisted of twelve thousand 
Americans and only about three thousand Mexi- 
cans. 

Soon the inconvenience of living under the un- 
stable Mexican rule brought these Americans to 



A GENERAL DESPITE POLITICS 217 

the point of revolution on their own account. 
They were very much in earnest and not always 
fastidious about the means they used to accom- 
plish their ends. They were typical frontiers- 
men, daring and rough and bold. Not all of them 
were bona-fide residents of Texas; numbers 
crossed the border because they scented trouble 
and liked it. In 1835 and 1836, when matters 
came to a head, their leader was Samuel Hous- 
ton, who had already experienced a varied and 
eventful career as lawyer, Indian agent, soldier 
in the War of 18 12, Governor of Tennessee, 
Cherokee chief, and bridegroom who had fled 
from the arms of his new wife back to the free- 
dom of Indian life, before he began to make his- 
tory in Texas. 

But whatever the faults of these men of the 
Southwest, they had a chivalrous code of their 
own that bade them stand stanchly by their 
friends, and according to it they were willing to 
live and die. In the troubles that followed they 
had plenty of opportunities to do both, for the 
Mexican authorities were not gentle with them. 
They surrounded several bands of Americans and 
killed every one. One of the most tragic of these 
happenings was the shooting in cold blood of 
three hundred and fifty Americans under Colonel 
Fannin at Goliad on Palm Sunday, 1836. They 



218 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

could have escaped capture had not Colonel Fan- 
nin felt it his duty to await the return of a detach- 
ment he had sent out to rescue some settlers, — 
a detachment that the Mexicans had totally anni- 
hilated. The most famous of all these bloody oc- 
currences was the siege of the Alamo, an ancient 
adobe church near San Antonio, which had been 
turned into a fort. Here one hundred and forty 
Americans held out for almost two weeks against 
ten times their number. When the fort was car- 
ried by storm, only six men in it remained alive, 
and these were promptly shot by their conquerors. 
The rest had died where they stood, fighting in 
little groups to the last. One who lost his life 
here was James Bowie, inventor of the murderous 
knife that bears his name; another was the fam- 
ous frontiersman Davy Crockett. He was found 
still grasping his weapon, with a heap of twenty 
Mexican dead before him to testify how dearly 
he had sold his life. 

Houston was major-general of the Texan 
forces, and while retreating after Goliad and the 
Alamo, he learned that the main army under 
Santa Anna was temporarily divided by a freshet. 
Although he had only eight hundred men he 
promptly turned to attack Santa Anna's vanguard 
of sixteen hundred. These were encamped be- 
hind breastworks on a piece of dry ground sur- 



A GENERAL DESPITE POLITICS 219 

rounded by marshes. Had it not been a matter 
of such tragic earnest, the account of that battle 
would read like a comic distorted dream. In 
order to cross the swamp and reach the Mexicans, 
Houston's army made use of a timber raft. A 
leaky scow transported his artillery, two six- 
pounder guns called the "Twin Sisters." The 
cavalry horses swam, and the army band of one 
fife and one drum led the way, playing not a 
martial air, but a popular song of the moment, 
"Will you come into the bower?" There was 
one bridge by which the Americans might retreat 
to safety in case of disaster, but they were too 
full of thoughts of revenge to care for lines of re- 
treat, and they promptly destroyed it. They had 
only two hundred bayonets for eight hundred 
men, but with past scores to settle, the Americans 
were in a mood to do wolfish things with their 
bare hands. Shouting "Remember Goliad !" and 
"Remember the Alamo!" they charged upon the 
Mexicans. 

These were taken completely off their guard; 
for it was late afternoon, and secure in their posi- 
tion and in the hour of the day, the soldiers were 
playing games, while Santa Anna was asleep. 
Some of the officers tried to rally their men and 
to steady them, but the Americans came upon 
them so quickly that they had not even time to 



220 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

discharge their guns. In fifteen minutes the 
battle was over, with losses which show that the 
Texans were not generous victors. It is thought 
that less than fifty escaped. Santa Anna was one 
of these, but he was captured the next day in the 
swamp. If ever a commander was tricky and 
treacherous and deserved hanging for past mis- 
deeds, it was he. The Texans clamored for his 
life, but Houston was shrewd and not vindictive 
and knew that Santa Anna alive was worth much 
more to Texas than Santa Anna dead ; so he pro- 
tected him, and used him in bargaining with the 
Mexican authorities. 

With its commanding general in Houston's 
custody, and a large part of its army killed or 
prisoners, Mexico was forced to admit, for the 
time being, that Texas was independent. Shortly 
afterward the Texans asked to be annexed to the 
United States, desiring, of course, to come into 
the Union as a slave state. But the question of 
slavery had become a bone of contention, and 
there was so much opposition that almost ten 
years passed before Texas was really a part of 
the Union. 

President Polk, who was inaugurated about the 
time that Congress voted to annex Texas, called 
it a bloodless revolution; but it is doubtful if 
even the most optimistic believed this. Soon 



A GENERAL DESPITE POLITICS 221 

after Santa Anna was safely back in its hands 
the Mexican Government served notice that it 
did not propose to submit to "an aggression un- 
precedented in the annals of the world," and it had 
been making war against Texas in a fitful way 
ever since. Even had Mexico been minded to 
submit, the amount of territory involved would 
have given ample ground for quarrel. Our Gov- 
ernment assumed that everything east of the Rio 
Grande belonged to Texas, though in reality the 
country was settled only as far as the Nueces 
River. The area between was most irregular in 
shape, only a few miles wide in some spots, hun- 
dreds of miles in others ; taken all together it was 
as large as New England. 

The Whig party, and the people of the North 
generally, had opposed annexing Texas, being 
persuaded that it was done to enlarge the amount 
of slave territory. The Democrats and the 
South, on the other hand, were willing to go to 
war for the sake of it; but since the opposition 
was strong, they felt they must be cautious and 
that, if war came, Mexico must be made to seem 
to be the aggressor. The Democrats were in 
control of the Government, and during the sum- 
mer of 1845, several months before Texas was 
formally admitted to the Union, General Zachary 
Taylor was sent with a considerable part of the 



222 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

small United States Army to Corpus Christi, at 
the mouth of the Nueces River, in the hope that 
being there on the border, at the very edge of the 
disputed territory, fighting might come about 
without direct orders from Washington. 

The old general understood perfectly what was 
expected of him, and took a -grim pleasure in de- 
laying it as long as possible. Knowing, how- 
ever, that in all human probability war must 
come, he turned the interval to good account in 
drilling his men. The winter passed in complete 
friendliness. General Taylor's young officers, 
one of whom was named Ulysses S. Grant, 
bought wild ponies of their brown Mexican 
neighbors, who seemed far more inclined to trade 
of this kind than to exchanges of lead. In the 
intervals of drill the young men subdued their 
wild mounts, attended Mexican dances, and made 
the nights melodious with sentimental song. 

It was all very delightful, but it was not war. 
In March the administration lost patience and 
ordered General Taylor to advance toward the 
Rio Grande. The country between the two riv- 
ers was virtually a desert, in which a few pools 
of water, trampled at their edges by the feet of 
wild horses and buffaloes, marked the length of 
a day's journey. General Taylor's expedition 
wound from one of these to another in a thin blue 



A GENERAL DESPITE POLITICS 223 

line that looked very inadequate for an army of 
invasion. But in all the distance it found nothing 
to oppose it and, reaching the Rio Grande, began 
building a fort opposite Matamoros. Then the 
clash came; for Mexicans cultivated their fields 
thereabouts, and Mexican cavalry, circling 
around parties of Taylor's soldiers that ventured 
too far from camp, killed several and captured 
others. President Polk announced in a special 
message that "the cup of forbearance has been ex- 
hausted"; Congress declared war, and our army 
crossed the Rio Grande. 

The Democrats in Congress tried to trap their 
Whig colleagues into voting that it was a 
righteous war. This the Whigs steadfastly re- 
fused to do, though they were generous in the 
matter of appropriations, drawing a sharp dis- 
tinction between voting that they approved of the 
war and voting to send necessary supplies to sol- 
diers who were obeying orders and risking their 
lives in a foreign land through no desire of their 
own. 

Dispatches traveled slowly. It took two weeks 
for news from the front to reach Washington by 
letter or special messenger. By the time the Gov- 
ernment learned that its soldiers had been killed 
near Matamoros, General Taylor had crossed the 
river, won two battles, and was about to fight a 



224 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

third ; and the Whigs, being human, could not help 
rejoicing that it was a man of their own party 
who was leading the army with such success. 
The Democrats had no general of their own po- 
litical faith to send, the two officers whose rank 
and official age entitled them to the honor being 
General Taylor and General Winfield Scott, both 
Whigs. 

Convinced that he could not feed his army if he 
marched too far away from the Rio Grande, and 
that even if he captured cities along the coast he 
could not hold them because of the yellow fever 
that raged at that time of year, General Taylor 
devoted himself to cutting off the northern prov- 
inces from the rest of Mexico. This does not 
sound at all exciting, but the details of his cam- 
paign were altogether too dramatic to satisfy an 
administration that desired just enough military 
success to accomplish its purpose and not enough 
to give General Taylor a popularity that might 
send him to the White House. Politicians are 
always keenly aware that Americans like to elect 
their military heroes to the Presidency. General 
Scott was known to have strong ambitions in that 
direction, which was perhaps the reason why Gen- 
eral Taylor had been chosen instead as leader of 
the expedition to Mexico. Taylor at least was no 
politician; he had been in the army almost forty 



A GENERAL DESPITE POLITICS 225 

years, and had never even voted for a president, 
much less desired to become one. 

He kept on steadily giving attention to the job 
before him, which was to win victories, and let 
political consequences take care of themselves. 
Although our country had increased enormously 
in numbers and wealth since the War of 181 2, 
and many wonderful inventions had been made, 
our soldiers were still armed with flint-lock mus- 
kets. In the matter of antiquated weapons, how- 
ever, Taylor was no worse off than his opponents. 
Part of the Mexican cavalry carried lances and 
spears that recalled the Crusades, while their can- 
non were as much out of date as though they were 
the actual pieces with which Cortes conquered 
Mexico from Montezuma. 

In the opening battle at Palo Alto on May 8, 
1846, Taylor's batteries were drawn into place 
by ox-teams, and the solid shot from the ancient 
Mexican guns bounded along the ground so 
slowly that the Americans, seeing them coming, 
could sometimes open ranks and let them roll 
harmlessly through. Compared with this leis- 
urely artillery duel, the battle of Resaca de la 
Palma the next day was a whirlwind, in which 
Taylor's men sent the brown Mexicans spinning 
through their camp, where cooks were preparing 
dinner for them, and on into the Rio Grande. 



226 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

The numbers engaged were so small that it would 
hardly have merited the name of battle in the 
Civil War, but the standard of valor was Wash- 
ington's own. "Old Rough and Ready," as Gen- 
eral Taylor was fondly called by his men, urged 
not to expose himself, had answered, 'Then let 
us ride a little forward where the balls will fall 
behind us." That he was pleased with the way 
his fine group of junior officers, young men lately 
graduated from West Point and others who had 
seen a little service, bore themselves can be in- 
ferred, for after the fight was over he looked at 
them with real tenderness in his sharp old eyes 
and gave them great praise in four short words, 
"Gentlemen, you are veterans." 

They did not disappoint him. After those two 
small, but complete, successes at the outset of the 
war, both the army and the people at home began- 
to expect victory. And victory came to them 
even more abundantly than it had come to the 
navy in the War of 1812. "In less than two cam- 
paigns," says a writer, "we conquered a great 
country and a peace without the loss of a single 
battle or skirmish." This author thinks it was 
due to those gallant and talented young West 
Pointers, to training; in other words to the same 
thing that had won the naval victories thirty-odd 
years before. Be that as it may, reports of their 



A GENERAL DESPITE POLITICS 227 

successes went home to be eagerly read from end 
to end of the country. After many days news- 
paper accounts of its battles began to filter back 
to Taylor's army, which had some difficulty in 
recognizing its own doings, so magnified and em- 
broidered were they. But while the army read 
these with amusement, fathers and mothers and 
friends at home read them with real emotion, 
each confident that the steadiness of one particu- 
lar lad had brought about the result. Indeed, 
aside from personal interest, there was plenty of 
novelty and picturesqueness in the reports to 
kindle the vivid American imagination. 

Congress had authorized fifty thousand volun- 
teers, and as soon as General Taylor received a 
sufficient number of these he began advancing 
upon Monterey, the largest town in northern 
Mexico. The very first stage of the march after 
leaving the Rio Grande proved that men from the 
North could not endure the heat of Mexico's sun 
at that season, and thereafter the army moved by 
night and camped by day, pressing on until dawn 
brightened to the intolerable glare that drove 
them to shelter. Its first experience with mule 
trains was also enlightening. Americans might 
vanquish Mexican men, but the Mexican mule 
was invincible, and they found that there was 
neither strength nor profanity enough in the 



228 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

army to make him move. Fortunately the en- 
emy was expert at the task and friendly enough 
to perform it, and Taylor's column continued to 
advance upon Monterey under the kindly stars, 
accompanied by small brown men who seemed at 
heart to bear the gringos no ill-will. 

Monterey was defended by ten thousand Mexi- 
cans, and its population of twelve thousand lived 
in flat-topped houses with parapets that made 
every one of them a fortress. It was encircled 
by a string of forts and had street defenses in ad- 
dition. The Mexicans were good fighters when 
it came to the point, and it required three days of 
sharp and daring work on the part of Taylor's 
force of seven thousand to bring the town to the 
point of surrender. In this fighting Lieuten- 
ant Grant and an older West Point graduate, a 
son-in-law of General Taylor named Jefferson 
Davis, bore gallant part. 

When the city was surrendered on September 
24, 1846, General Taylor agreed that the Mexi- 
cans should march out with all the honors of war, 
and promised that his own army would not ad- 
vance beyond a certain point for eight weeks, un- 
less ordered to do so from Washington. The 
administration professed to be much dissatisfied 
with this, but it is a question whether they were 
more dissatisfied or disturbed by General Tay- 



A GENERAL DESPITE POLITICS 229 

lor's military conduct. He was not giving them 
the short war they desired, and his victories were 
making him so dangerously popular that they saw 
him looming up as a presidential possibility. 
The only man they could substitute for him was 
General Scott, who was not only a Whig, but 
was known to cherish hopes of being President. 
He had never approved of General Taylor's plan 
of campaign and to send him to Mexico would 
seem to discredit Taylor. It was a risky politi- 
cal experiment; but there was political danger 
in any event, and it might happen that the two 
generals would fall to quarreling after the war 
was over and that both would lose the prize. 

So General Taylor was directed to end his truce 
at Monterey. He did this gladly, and while wait- 
ing further orders, marched and countermarched 
to the help of various detachments of his troops, 
one of which under General Worth at Saltillo 
was menaced by that "inveterate Mexican revolu- 
tionist Santa Anna, who had been in exile, but 
had managed to reenter the country and place 
himself at the head of the Mexican army. 

General Taylor's next orders from Washington 
filled him with wrathful amazement. He not 
only learned that he was to be superseded by 
General Scott, but that a large part of his trained 
force was to be sent South to take part in Scott's 



230 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

campaign. Meanwhile he was expected to hold 
a long defensive line with the remnant of his men 
and such raw recruits as were sent him. He 
protested, but to no avail, and had to watch his 
soldiers march away. Santa Anna, through a 
captured letter, learned of his diminished force 
and thought he saw a chance to beat Taylor and 
then hurry south to defeat General Scott, though 
this would involve a march of one thousand miles 
over barren uplands. No white soldier could 
have endured the heat by day or the bitter chill 
at night, but Mexicans, bodily and mentally, 
seem ruled by different natural laws; and with 
all his faults, Santa Anna could never be accused 
of lack of energy. 

Taylor awaited Santa Anna's coming in a nar- 
row valley in the mountains. A hacienda near 
by was called Buena Vista, and this gave its name 
to the battle. On Washington's birthday Santa 
Anna sent General Taylor the message: "You 
are surrounded by twenty thousand and cannot 
avoid being cut to pieces. I wish to save you this 
disaster, and summon you to surrender at discre- 
tion, and give you an hour to make up your mind." 
It did not require the fourth part of an hour for 
Old Rough and Ready to answer with a curt re- 
fusal, and next morning at daybreak the great 
battle of the war began. The road to Saltillo 



A GENERAL DESPITE POLITICS 231 

ran through the valley. Taylor planted his 
troops across it, with his baggage trains at Buena 
Vista a mile in the rear. The Mexicans attacked 
in three columns, some rushing down the moun- 
tain-side, some advancing along the road. The 
fortunes of war fluctuated, now resting with the 
men from the North, now with the Mexicans. 
At first the Mexicans scattered before the fire 
of Taylor's batteries. Then Taylor's left was 
turned, and part of his troops were cut off from 
the rest. Mexicans seemed fairly to roll down 
from the mountain-side and to fill the valley, 
with victory almost within their grasp. But 
Taylor formed new lines at right angles to his 
old ones, and the Mexicans found themselves 
again under the deadly fire of Jefferson Davis's 
infantry and of batteries commanded by certain 
of Taylor's young officers named Sherman and 
Thomas and Reynolds and Bragg and Kilburn, 
of whom their countrymen were to hear more in 
later years. Once again the Mexicans retreated, 
but another body of Santa Anna's troops made its 
way along the base of the mountain to fall upon 
Buena Vista, where only a small force had been 
left to guard the luggage. This force, however, 
put the Mexicans to rout and cut their column in 
two, even while Sherman and Reynolds were hur- 
rying their batteries to the rescue. The Ameri- 



232 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

cans pursued, and the Mexicans, in their turn, 
seemed on the eve of capture, when four of their 
officers displayed a white flag, a ruse that stopped 
the firing long enough to allow their men to re- 
join their comrades. Then Santa Anna gained 
the advantage, captured one of Taylor's batteries, 
and was about to close the mouth of the ravine 
with a body of his picturesque lancers, when for 
the last time American cannon opened on them; 
in the moment of their confusion they were at- 
tacked on the flank by American infantry, and 
the whole Mexican army fled, retreating that 
night to Agua Nueva, leaving dead and wounded 
behind. 

It was nearly three weeks before the first news 
of this battle reached home, in a copy of the 
"Matamoros Flag" brought by a schooner to New 
Orleans. A ship from Galveston confirmed the 
rumor and added disheartening details. Taylor 
had been badly beaten ; he had lost two thousand 
men and six guns. Ten days more were re- 
quired for this distressing information to reach 
Washington. It was the harder to believe and to 
bear because of the successes that had preceded 
it. The administration was most harshly criti- 
cized for taking Taylor's "veterans" away from 
him. Then in the midst of the gloom came the 
tidings that this was all a mistake and that Buena 



A GENERAL DESPITE POLITICS 233 

Vista had been the great and brilliant victory of 
the war. Mourning and faultfinding gave way 
to joy, and Taylor's popularity increased to the 
point the Democrats so dreaded, a popularity that 
elected him, two years later, President of the 
United States, 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE ROAD THAT CORTES TRAVELED 

GENERAL SCOTT, who knew quite well 
that the administration was unfriendly to 
him, did not wish to go to Mexico. He said it 
placed him between two fires, one at the front, 
the other in Washington; but he was a soldier, 
and orders were orders. He was assured that 
he would be provided with all the men and sup- 
plies he asked for, and given to understand that 
his apprehensions were really groundless. As he 
feared, these promises were broken; he received 
only about half the troops asked for, and felt that 
he had reason to look upon their higher officers 
as his personal or political enemies. But his 
spirit was roused, and he determined to show the 
Democratic administration what he could do. 

He had not approved of General Taylor's cam- 
paign in northern Mexico, believing that the 
American Army should be landed at Vera Cruz 
and march upon the City of Mexico over the route 
taken by Cortes three hundred years before. It 
was this plan that he now followed. He first laid 
siege to the old walled seaport of Vera Cruz that 

234 



ROAD THAT CORTES TRAVELED 235 

the Spanish conqueror had founded, but when it 
surrendered on March 29, 1847, he did not at- 
tempt to garrison it, knowing well that, though its 
gates were wide open, the deadly vomito held it 
effectively against Northern troops. 

As speedily as possible, therefore, he set out in 
the footsteps of Cortes. In this march of two 
hundred and sixty miles from the ocean to the 
Mexican capital, his army was called upon to 
pass through all climates from the torrid to the 
frigid zone. First came the sea-level, with its fe- 
vers and its odd vegetation through which cactus 
thrust unsightly prickly arms. Then low hills 
led to an upland very like that on which Tay- 
lor's army had spent the winter near the Nueces. 
After that came more hills covered with almost 
tropical forests, very strange and oppressive to 
Northern eyes unused to vines lacing the trees 
together in a smothering mass, to gaudy, unmus- 
ical birds, and to flaming, unfragrant flowers. 
Beyond these, at an altitude of seven thousand 
feet, was another plain. Here lay the City of 
Mexico surrounded by mountains whose summits 
were white with snow. This diversity of climate 
menaced the health of Scott's army and added im- 
mensely to the difficulty of the short march. 

Although Santa Anna had been so thoroughly 
beaten by Taylor in February, he carried out his 



236 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

plan of going south to oppose Scott, and the 
middle of May found him waiting with a new 
army of thirteen thousand at Cerro Gordo, where 
the mountains begin. Cerro Gordo is a great 
conical hill commanding the road over which the 
Americans had to pass. The Mexicans held the 
surrounding heights, their old bronze cannon 
raking every turn of the road. A direct attack 
would have meant certain disaster, and from the 
nature of the ground, a flank movement seemed 
equally impossible. But Scott had with him 
young officers as capable as those with Taylor; 
indeed, some of the latter had also joined him. 
They spied out a way where a road might be cut ; 
at night soldiers dragged guns along it, lowered 
them over precipices and dragged them up cliffs 
so silently that Santa Anna's men only discovered 
the work when they were well in place, command- 
ing their now useless batteries. The Mexicans 
awoke to the disagreeable fact of being prisoners, 
three thousand of them, with arms and stores, 
falling into American hands. The rest escaped 
in hurried flight, their commander galloping away 
on one of the mules of his traveling-carriage, 
which was captured with his most personal be- 
longings, including his wooden leg. General 
Scott paroled the Mexican prisoners, having no 
desire to feed them, and wrote a report to Wash- 



ROAD THAT CORTES TRAVELED 237 

ington, dated "fifty miles from Vera Cruz," in 
which he mentioned casually, but somewhat 
ostentatiously, that he found himself embarrassed 
by the number of bronze cannon he had taken 
from the enemy. 

Then the victors went on to Jalapa, a town 
lying in a region of perpetual spring. The 
next objective was Perote on the upper plain. 
It opened its gates as the Americans approached. 
Santa Anna had retreated farther toward the 
capital; and except when ordered to fight, the 
Mexicans seemed friendly and decidedly partial 
to the real money the American Army left in its 
wake. Notwithstanding, Scott experienced at 
Jalapa the loss of half his force. It was the old 
trouble often suffered during the Revolution : the 
term for which the volunteer regiments had en- 
listed was about to expire. He had the right to 
keep them with him for a few weeks more, but if 
he did so, they would be obliged to wait for trans- 
ports at Vera Cruz at the season when yellow 
fever was at its worst. There was no immedi- 
ate prospect of an important battle, and he dis- 
missed them at once. His dislike of volunteers 
permitted him to do this without great sorrow. 

The Government felt that the war had now 
gone on long enough for its own purposes, so it 
sent down the chief clerk of the state department, 



238 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Nicholas P. Trist, to end the matter by purchase. 
Despite his great military skill and good sense, 
General Scott was a man of strong personal pe- 
culiarities and a stickler for etiquette in unim- 
portant matters. His men called him "Old Fuss 
and Feathers." His wrath when Mr. Trist ap- 
peared can be imagined. The idea that a "mere 
clerk" should presume to interfere with his mili- 
tary plans drove him almost to apoplexy. For a 
time he carried on two vigorous campaigns, one 
against this gentleman and one against the en- 
emy. Later they became good friends, but only 
after much ink had been spilled and much breath 
wasted. 

Mexico refused Mr. Trist's offer, and the war 
continued. Puebla, the finest city in Mexico with 
the exception of the capital, surrendered without 
firing a gun. From this spot, after enough rein- 
forcements reached him to raise his force to ten 
thousand men, Scott advanced upon the City of 
Mexico. It was in this last stage of his expedi- 
tion that his audacity showed itself. After leav- 
ing Puebla he could no longer expect to provision 
his army from Vera Cruz. He boldly cut adrift, 
regardless of lines of supplies or lines of retreat, 
and marched his army through mountain passes 
toward the capital of a nation of eight million 
people, trusting entirely to what food he could find 



ROAD THAT CORTES TRAVELED 239 

along his line of march. The greatest military 
commander of the day, the Duke of Wellington, 
had watched Scott's campaign up to this time with 
interest and admiration ; but he now remarked to 
a friend that the American general's head had 
been turned by success, and that he was "lost"; 
since he would be able neither to take the city nor 
to return to the coast. 

Scott's way lay over some of the loftiest moun- 
tains of the continent. Rio Frio, the pass over 
which the army traveled, could easily have been 
defended; but Santa Anna had vivid memories 
of two disastrous battles with Americans in 
mountain passes and preferred not to risk a third. 
Unopposed, Scott's force reached the summit and 
looked down upon the capital, lying as Mexican 
cities so frequently lie, in a plain surrounded by 
heights. It made a fair picture, with its belfries 
and the emerald green fields that pressed close up 
against its walls. To the south and east were 
three blue lakes; and in the circle of mountains 
rose the giant extinct volcanoes Popocatepetl and 
Ixtaccihuatl white against the sky. 

Santa Anna had three men to Scott's one, and 
not only held the city, but several villages in the 
plain, while Chapultepec, a rocky hill crowded 
with a castle and military school, bristled with 
guns at base and summit and blocked the path of 



240 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

the invaders. Scott decided to skirt the lakes and 
attack from the south. Santa Anna shifted his 
men and set his Mexican Indians to work cutting 
ditches and fortifying the church in the village of 
Cherubusco, while the Americans began to hew 
their way across a great field of lava toward their 
goal. On the twentieth of August the heights of 
Contreras passed into American hands, as did also 
San Antonio and Cherubusco, with its level fields 
and ditches. On the following morning as the 
invading army was about to take up assaulting 
positions, the Mexicans proposed a truce to dis- 
cuss terms. This bade fair to be a long process, 
until Scott discovered that Santa Anna was mak- 
ing use of the time to strengthen his defenses. 
He declared the armistice at an end, and on Sep- 
tember 8 took Molino del Rey, a low stone build- 
ing that had once been a powder-mill but was now 
a formidable fortress. Five days later the rock 
of Chapultepec, defended by nine thousand men, 
was carried by an assault in which scaling ladders 
and personal daring played conspicuous parts. 

That night Scott's troop's cut their way secretly 
through the soft adobe walls of houses in the out- 
skirts toward the city gates; but in the morning 
it was found that Santa Anna had fled. It was 
"under a brilliant sun," and cheered by a not un- 
friendly populace, that Scott's soldiers marched 




WINFIELD SCOTT, BREVET LIEUTENANT GENERAL, U. S. A. 



ROAD THAT CORTES TRAVELED 241 

through the streets of Mexico's capital and raised 
the Stars and Stripes in the plaza. They had to 
remain some months in Mexico while the treaty 
of peace was being arranged. As finally signed 
at Guadalupe-Hidalgo on February 2, 1848, our 
country gained not only Texas, for which it had 
gone to war, but New Mexico, western Colorado, 
Utah, Nevada, and California, altogether an area 
equal to about seventeen States the size of New 
York. 

California, the richest of all, was not then 
known for its gold fields. That wonderful dis- 
covery came two years later. It was merely an 
ill-governed province of Mexico ; but there were 
already a few Americans on its ocean front and 
in its mountains who coveted it for its own sake, 
and a few statesmen in Washington who feared 
that Mexico might be willing to give California 
to England rather than lose it to the United 
States. So even before war was declared the 
commander of our squadron in the Pacific had 
been warned to take Yerba Buena and what other 
ports he could, in case he heard that war had 
come. Yerba Buena was a village of two hun- 
dred people that was beginning to be known as 
San Francisco. The American consul at Mon- 
terey and that brilliant young explorer, John C. 
Fremont, who was already known as the ''Path- 



242 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

finder," for his work in the West, were also given 
their orders. In short, everything was made 
conveniently ready in case Fate should thrust 
California into our hands. When hostilities ac- 
tually opened, and Colonel Kearney, after tak- 
ing Santa Fe, started westward under orders, he 
was met a few days out on the dusty trail by Kit 
Carson, the famous scout, who was traveling east- 
ward with dispatches for Washington. From 
him Colonel Kearney learned that California had 
already been captured, that the United States 
flag floated at all important points, and that 
Fremont was governor. There had been a little 
fighting, but hardly enough to belie the statement 
of one of Fremont's men, who said that they had 
marched from end to end of the province and had 
"tried to find an enemy," but could not. 

Of all the wars in which our country has been 
engaged, this Mexican War is the hardest to 
justify and the least dreadful to remember. The 
men who wanted more slave territory made up 
their minds to force a war in order to get it. In 
that sense it was without justification ; but the war 
itself seemed more like a gay excursion than like 
deadly earnest. There was plenty of adventure 
and plenty of danger, but little of war's revolting 
cruelty. The country over which our army 
marched, with the glamor of its ancient history 



ROAD THAT CORTES TRAVELED 243 

and the wonders of its scenery, added to the un- 
reality and the charm. Even the attitude of the 
half-naked Mexicans, who fought well with their 
old-time weapons when they had to, but welcomed 
the invaders with smiles when left to their own 
choice, added to the illusion that it was not real 
war, but only a picturesque make-believe. 

It had most grave and serious consequences, 
however. Its very success hastened the Civil 
War, and these gay campaigns prepared both Un- 
ion and Confederate officers for that strife. "My 
training in the Mexican War," wrote General 
Grant, "was of great advantage to me afterward. 
Besides the practical lessons it taught, the war 
brought nearly all the officers of the Regular 
Army together so as to make them personally ac- 
quainted." 

History has recorded how well these young men 
who fought and danced through Mexico learned 
in their pilgrimage lessons that were to be turned 
to grim account. 



PART V 

CIVIL WAR 

A Fight for Freedom 



CHAPTER XVIII 

KING COTTON'S BLACK HEART 

AT the time the Revolution began there were 
in the thirteen colonies about three million 
people, who lived for the most part between the 
Alleghanies and the Atlantic Ocean. When that 
war ended, the new nation found itself politically 
free and possessed of land extending as far west 
as the Mississippi River. A few years later Na- 
poleon sold Louisiana Territory to President Jef- 
ferson, and this almost doubled the national do- 
main. In 1819, Florida was purchased from 
Spain. Oregon came into undisputed control of 
the United States through a treaty with England 
in 1846; and the Mexican War gave us not only 
Texas, but mountains and deserts and fruitful 
valleys stretching all the way to the Pacific coast. 
In seventy years our country had expanded 
from a mere narrow strip of land along the At- 
lantic to a domain that stretched from sea to sea ; 
during those same years it grew as marvelously in 
other ways. It grew in population through the 
increase of the original settlers and the arrival of 

thousands upon thousands of emigrants from 

247 



248 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Europe. Their strange faces were to be seen 
upon the streets of Eastern cities, their odd speech 
was heard in the newly opened regions of the 
West. But their minds, and even their speech, 
quickly took on the ways of their adopted country. 
Although they were completely foreign when they 
landed, it was before very real Americans that the 
Indians and buffaloes retreated slowly, but stead- 
ily, westward year by year. 

The country grew in wealth, because in the 
North its people were frugal and industrious, 
planting and reaping, building factories and open- 
ing mines. In the South wealth fairly blossomed 
because of one little thing: a strange small box 
full of wires and saw-tooth wheels contrived by a 
Northern man while visiting on a Southern plan- 
tation. The man was Eli Whitney ; his invention 
was the cotton-gin ; and the hostess, whose belief 
in the young Yankee's ingenuity changed the cur- 
rent of our country's history, was the widow of 
General Nathanael Greene of the Revolutionary 
War. Young Whitney knew nothing about cot- 
ton; he had never even seen it growing; but at 
her request he turned his mind upon the problem 
of separating the fiber from its troublesome black 
seed. It had long been known that cotton would 
flourish in the Southern States, but the cost of 
preparing it for market had been too great to 



KING COTTON'S BLACK HEART 249 

make its culture profitable. With Whitney's ma- 
chine it became very profitable, for a black man 
turning a crank could clean fifty pounds a day, 
whereas by tedious hand labor it had only been 
possible to clean a single pound. 

This machine was invented about ten years 
after the Revolution, and, as a result, the value of 
cotton lands and of slaves to cultivate them in- 
creased enormously. Before that time slavery 
had been deplored by the better class of Ameri- 
cans. It seemed an evil strangely out of place in 
a country dedicated to liberty; but it had existed 
over the world since the beginning of history; it 
had been introduced early into the American col- 
onies both North and South ; and though the mak- 
ers of the Constitution regretted it, they did not 
see their way at the moment to abolish it. They 
did, however, agree that after a certain date no 
more negroes should be imported from Africa; 
and the feeling against slave-owning was so 
strong that they were confident it would die out 
of itself. 

But the invention of that little box with its me- 
chanical claws and teeth put a different aspect on 
the matter. People grew rich by means of it ; and 
it is hard to look for evil in anything overlaid with 
gold. Little by little the people of the South lost 
sight of the injustice of slavery and dwelt only 



250 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

upon the good it brought them. They came in 
time to argue that the slaves themselves were far 
better off under kind masters than in the wilds of 
Africa practising their heathen rites. 

The North was spared this temptation. Cot- 
ton could not be grown there, and it held to its 
original view. Years before Whitney made his 
invention, the Ordinance of 1787 had decreed that 
slavery should not be practised in the Northwest 
Territory that lay to the north of the Ohio River. 
One after another the Northern States prohibited 
it within their own borders, and gradually the 
whole country took sides, the North disapproving 
and the South favoring it. Each section was 
quite willing that the States already in the Union 
should suit themselves in this matter; but each 
was very anxious to have its own view adopted in 
territory out of which new States were to be 
formed. The secret of this anxiety lay in the 
fact that each State is entitled to two votes in the 
United States Senate, and politically it was of 
great importance to each section to have a ma- 
jority in that body, in order to pass laws that were 
of benefit to its own people. 

While there was an abundance of unsettled 
land both north and south of the Ohio River, it 
did not matter much, for it was easy to admit new 
States into the Union in couples, a free State and 



KING COTTON'S BLACK HEART 251 

a slave State on the same day, and thus keep the 
vote of the two regions about equal. This plan 
worked so well that discussion almost ceased, and 
slavery seemed to be accepted as a matter of 
course, until in 1820, when there were already 
eleven free and eleven slave States, Missouri 
asked to be admitted as a slave State. Arkansas, 
also, would soon be ready to enter the Union with 
slavery, and this threatened addition of four votes 
for the slave States and consequent loss of power 
to the North opened up the whole question anew. 
It was settled by a compromise, an agreement to 
divide all remaining United States territory along 
the line of 36 30', making slavery legal below 
that line and prohibiting it to the north, except in 
the case of Missouri, which was allowed to enter 
the Union as a slave State, though it lay entirely 
north of 36 30'. This agreement was known as 
the Missouri Compromise, and Henry Clay, who 
did so much to bring about the War of 1812, and 
had been a prominent and much loved public man 
ever since, gained his greatest reputation by advo- 
cating it. 

But slavery was like the black seeds in the cot- 
ton boll. It was evil, and the only way to get rid 
of it was to pluck it out. No amount of compro- 
mise availed, and even when hidden, it remained 
a malignant fact in our national life. Soon the 



252 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

territory that slavery had gained by means of the 
Missouri Compromise appeared insufficient to 
Southern leaders, who saw that it would be 
quickly divided into States, while vast unsettled 
areas yet lay to the north out of which free States 
could be made. To get more they brought on the 
war with Mexico. This added much new land to 
the country, but also added many new and trou- 
blesome questions for discussion. Mexican law 
prohibited slavery. Texas proposed to ignore 
this, but the opponents of the system argued that 
it was monstrous to allow a wrong like slavery to 
take root in regions that had once been free. 
Even while the Mexican War was in progress, 
David Wilmot, a representative in Congress from 
Pennyslvania, offered an amendment providing 
that slavery should never be allowed in territory 
acquired from Mexico. It passed the House, to 
be defeated in the Senate; but the Whig party 
brought up this Wilmot Proviso time and again 
in one form or another, until by mere persistence 
they fastened the attention of the whole country 
upon the moral point that had been lost to sight 
under the piles of wealth rolling out of Whitney's 
little box. Was slavery right or wrong? For 
fifteen years this was discussed with ever-increas- 
ing bitterness. In 1854 the advocates of slavery 
managed to have the Missouri' Compromise re- 



KING COTTON'S BLACK HEART 253 

pealed, and after that the discussion embittered 
every relation of life. Friendships were broken 
by it ; families quarreled about it ; old political par- 
ties died and new ones were born because of it; 
churches split in two over the righteousness or 
unrighteousness of slavery. Finally the South 
declared it would leave the Union and set up a 
government of its own. 

The idea of separation was not new. The 
right of our people to govern themselves and to 
regulate their own affairs had been the reason for 
our separation from England. The South ar- 
gued that this was a case of the same kind. It 
wanted slavery : what right had the North to ob- 
ject? The threat to secede and form a new gov- 
ernment had been used by both sections when one 
or the other happened to be dissatisfied, until, 
like the cry of "Wolf!" it had lost much of its 
terror. New England had called a convention 
to consider the matter at the time of the War of 
1 8 12; and in 1832, during what were known as 
the Nullification troubles, this same question of 
slavery loomed very large. The masterful hero 
of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson, was President 
of the United States at the time. The dispute 
arose over a question of state rights, the old 
quarrel whether the central Government had more 
or less authority than the separate States. 



254 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Southerners and Democrats generally held that 
the central Government had no power to make 
States obey any law to which they took exception. 
Jackson was both a Southerner and a Democrat ; 
but he was President of the whole country, and 
common sense told him that if the nation had any 
power at all, it must be greater than that of the 
separate pieces out of which it was composed. 
So when South Carolina gave notice that she 
would not pay certain taxes to which she objected, 
and laid elaborate plans for forming a Southern 
confederacy with slavery as an acknowledged 
principle and cotton as the chief source of its 
wealth, Jackson quietly warned military officers 
in the South to be on the alert, and at the proper 
moment issued a rousing proclamation which 
showed that he meant to put down such an at- 
tempt by force of arms. That, with his known 
character, sufficed, and the Nulliners gave way, — 
for the moment. 

But there were ambitious men among the 
Southern leaders, who dreamed of a slave empire 
stretching far into Central America, and knew 
that under the Constitution of the United States 
such a thing could never be. They knew, too, 
that despite all their wealth and their previous 
success, the North would finally outstrip their sec- 
tion in population, in extent, and consequently in 



KING COTTON'S BLACK HEART 255 

influence; so they bided their time. For a num- 
ber of years after the Nullification troubles it was 
profitable to remain in the Union ; and, of course, 
it was folly to withdraw as long as the Govern- 
ment was willing to fight the battles of the South. 
Meantime, they continued to lay their train and 
strengthen their position. 

Europe unconsciously helped by demanding 
more and more Southern cotton to use in manu- 
factures. Local pride was fostered by repeating 
that cotton was king. Southerners compared 
their own statesmen, free to follow intellectual 
pursuits, with the men of the North, who worked 
with their hands, and belittled the spirit and in- 
telligence of people who were content to do "me- 
nial" tasks, yet presumed to question the morality 
of slavery, which had existed since the dawn of 
history and for which Southern preachers could 
find abundant texts to show that it was an insti- 
tution approved of God. 

They did their work so tragically well that 
when the time came to carry out their plan of se- 
cession the people of the South followed their 
leadership, convinced of the soundness of their 
arguments, and for four long years laid down 
their lives in the cause of slavery as unflinchingly 
as their forefathers had given theirs to the cause 
of freedom. The time the leaders chose for this 



256 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

revolt was when the Republican party, which had 
grown up in the North around the question of 
slavery, elected Abraham Lincoln to be President 
of the United States. He was known to be an 
abolitionist. They vowed that the South would 
never endure the rule of a "black Republican." 
Before the news of his election was twenty-four 
hours old, they had raised the Palmetto flag, 
South Carolina's emblem, in Charleston, and ex- 
cited crowds were hurrahing for a new govern- 
ment. 

Yet, even after the many years of discussion, 
enthusiasm for secession had to be manufactured 
and carefully tended. It is doubtful whether a 
majority of the people of the South ever really 
desired to leave the Union or whether a majority 
of their leaders really expected to do so. On the 
part of some of them, at least, it was pure bluff, 
for they knew that the South was ill-prepared for 
actual war. As late as May i, 1861, the presi- 
dent'of a Southern railroad wrote to Richmond 
that there were no extra supplies on hand, and not 
even full supplies for sixty days. They based 
their expectations of success on the fact that half 
the exports from the United States to Europe 
were in the form of cotton, while, in addition to 
this demand, the North used large quantities in 
its home manufactures. The South possessed 



KING COTTON'S BLACK HEART 257 

the entire supply. It had been hearing for so 
long that Cotton was King that it fully believed 
it, and was persuaded that in this white and fleecy 
crop it held the power to drive the North to bank- 
ruptcy. Indeed, holding such a trump card it 
did not believe the North would dare to fight. 
But if the North should fight, the South was sure 
that the powers of Europe would very quickly 
rally to the support of a new confederacy which 
controlled so large a part of the world's supply of 
this now indispensable article. 

So, in the pride of his black heart, King Cotton 
threw down the gauntlet of battle. Contrary to 
the expectation of his ministers, the North took 
it up. In calculating his strength the servants of 
King Cotton made one serious mistake. The 
staple by which the South set such store was im- 
mensely valuable; but it was not one which the 
people of the region could either manufacture for 
themselves or use to sustain life. As long as it 
remained in their own possession it was useless. 
They might pile it up around them mountain high 
and grow poorer every day. It was the old 
Midas story over again, and so it worked out. 
Men perished, and women suffered ; and through 
their agony, Destiny, which is another name for 
Justice, brought the slaves of America out of 
bondage into freedom. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE SHOT THAT CLEARED THE AIR 

THE man whose election the South chose to 
make the signal for war had been as poor 
in his youth as any slave, — poorer, in fact, for no- 
body was responsible for his well-being except 
himself, and he might die of hunger if he did not 
earn his daily bread. In the course of his life 
he had done his full share of those menial tasks 
to which Southerners objected. He had worked 
with his hands during all the years that boys 
should be at school. He had experienced disap- 
pointment and failure and even disaster. He had 
entered an Indian campaign in early manhood as 
a captain, but had come out, through no fault of 
his own, a private. He had tried to be elected to 
the legislature and had failed. He had tried to 
keep store, and failure in that saddled him with a 
debt which was for a young man in his circum- 
stances an enormous burden. He had fallen in 
love with a beautiful girl, and she had died. 

So it had gone all his life long. Yet because of 
clean grit and manly spirit, his career had been 

258 



SHOT THAT CLEARED THE AIR 259 

one long success. He had managed to give him- 
self an education without schools. After that 
first failure to enter the legislature he had tried 
again and had been elected. He had become an 
eminent lawyer. His acquaintances came to re- 
alize that he had an unusual mind, that he saw 
clearly and reasoned straight, and that he was 
absolutely fearless in holding to what he believed 
to be true. Because of this, they soon ceased to 
be mere acquaintances and became his warm 
friends. They elected him to one office of trust 
after another. Little by little he traveled the 
long hard road from pioneer boy, awkward and 
raw, but blessed with a stout heart and a merry 
wit, to man of middle age and great authority, 
saddened by life's experiences, but keeping a 
boy's faith in truth and his belief in his fellow- 
men. He had spoken his mind freely about the 
right and wrong of slavery from the very first, 
even when he was a lad in a community where 
such speech was unpopular; and because of this 
fearlessness, he found himself at the age of fifty- 
one elected President of the United States. 
Then seven States rose up in rebellion, and it was 
predicted that he would never live to take the oath 
of office. He seemed to be once again on the 
brink of tremendous failure. 

A President is elected in November, but does 



2<5o THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

not take office until the following March. In 
the months between Lincoln had no more official 
power than the humblest field-hand working on 
King Cotton's plantations. Had those in author- 
ity acted promptly, there might still have been 
time to put down the rebellion; but President Bu- 
chanan let it grow unmolested, until it passed be- 
yond human control. He was a most amiable, 
polished gentleman, but not the man to hold office 
at such a moment. He admitted that there was 
revolution in the South, but professed to see no 
way of meeting it. William H. Seward said that 
Buchanan's message to Congress proved "conclu- 
sively, that it is the duty of the President to exe- 
cute the laws, unless somebody opposes him ; and 
that no State has the right to go out of the Union, 
unless it wants to." President Jackson had 
thought and acted differently. 

Three members of Buchanan's cabinet were 
deep in treason, and saw innumerable ways of 
furthering their designs under his very eyes. 
Gradually during those four months between Lin- 
coln's election and his inauguration various mints 
and arsenals, navy yards and forts in the South 
passed into the hands of the plotters; volunteer 
military organizations drilled quite openly and 
batteries were built. Charleston was the center 
of the trouble, as it had been in Nullification days; 



SHOT THAT CLEARED THE AIR 261 

and just as in that previous crisis, the real pur- 
pose of rebellion hid itself under a fine show of 
state rights. "If South Carolina and her com- 
panions chose to withdraw from the Union, who 
could prevent them? If the federal government 
should try, — " then the agitators invoked the 
name of Washington, and pointed to batteries ris- 
ing to menace the forts of Charleston Harbor. 

Lincoln, who was soon to have the responsi- 
bility, watched heartsick, as the precious chance 
faded away. Neither he nor any one else in the 
North could tell just how much of all this was 
bluster and how much real determination. Few 
in the North believed war possible, much less 
that it was actually upon the country. Congress 
talked about compromise; and the people waited 
in a kind of hypnotic trance expecting something, 
nobody knew what, to bring the unnatural situa- 
tion to an end. Southern leaders, meanwhile, 
went on with their preparations, but asserted that 
there would be no war. Jefferson Davis, the son- 
in-law of old Zachary Taylor, was quoted as say- 
ing that he was willing to drink all the blood that 
would flow from secession. 

By December matters became so serious that 
Major Robert Anderson, who was stationed with 
sixty soldiers in that tumble-down old Fort Moul- 
trie which had given good account of itself early 



262 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

in the Revolution, determined to move his whole 
command, women-folk, children, and bird-cages 
included, to Fort Sumter, a much stronger work, 
situated on an island midway in the harbor. On 
the day after Christmas this was accomplished so 
skilfully and secretly that the supper prepared in 
one fort was eaten in the other, to the astonish- 
ment of cooks and eaters alike, while a body of 
workmen engaged in repairing Fort Sumter, os- 
tensibly for the United States, but really for 
South Carolina, was suddenly confronted with 
convincing leveled bayonets. The baffled rage of 
the South Carolinians knew no bounds. They 
indignantly demanded that Anderson be ordered 
back to Moultrie. This brought on a cabinet cri- 
sis and forced the resignation of Buchanan's three 
treasonable ministers. Loyal men were put in 
their places, but the President could not be per- 
suaded to do anything to regain government 
property already in rebel hands. In January, 
General Scott tried to send two hundred men 
to Sumter on an unarmed merchant-steamer. 
Rebel batteries fired upon her and compelled her 
to turn back; even this did not rouse Buchanan. 
About the middle of February the South chose 
Jefferson Davis as Provisional President of the 
Confederate States of America, the new Govern- 
ment that had for its corner-stone, according to 



SHOT THAT CLEARED THE AIR 263 

one of its advocates, "the great truth that the 
Negro is not equal to the white man," and that 
"slavery, — subordination to the superior race, — 
is his natural and moral condition." Alexander 
H. Stevens, who announced this "corner-stone" 
theory, was chosen its vice-president. 

General Scott, now at the head of the army, was 
a Southern man, but loyal to the heart's core. 
Recalling the threat that Lincoln would not be 
allowed to take the oath of office, he saw to it, as 
the day of inauguration approached, that there 
were soldiers in Washington to guard against dis- 
turbance. On the fourth of March, when the 
courtly white-haired Buchanan and the tall, dark, 
rugged man from Illinois rode side by side in an 
open carriage to the Capitol, the crossings of 
Pennsylvania Avenue were guarded by cavalry, 
and riflemen posted on the roofs of buildings 
along the way stood ready to fire at need. Gen- 
eral Scott himself, though almost incapacitated 
by illness, was in the saddle, watchfully observ- 
ant, near a battery on the crest of Capitol Hill. 
Nothing occurred to mar the decorum of the cere- 
monies. A great crowd, eager to learn the policy 
of the new President, heard Lincoln deliver his 
inaugural address. They heard him announce 
that he would use the power the people had given 
him to hold property belonging to the Govern- 



264 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

ment and to collect the duties; but that beyond 
this he would not go, unless forced to do so by 
acts of those in rebellion. They heard his ap- 
peal to reason : 

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot 
remove our respective sections from each other, nor 
build an impassable wall between them. A husband and 
wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence and be- 
yond the reaqh of each other; but the different parts of 
our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain 
face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, 
must continue between them. Is it possible then to make 
that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory 
after separation than before? ... In your hands, my 
dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the 
momentous issue of civil war. The government will not 
assail you. You can have no conflict without being your- 
selves the aggressors. ... I am loath to close. We are 
not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. 
Though passion may have strained, it must not break our 
bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, 
stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to 
every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad 
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again 
touched, as surely they will be by the better angels of our 
nature. 

It must have been with deep thankfulness that 
General Scott and many others that day saw Lin- 
coln come down from the Capitol, clothed with a 
President's power, and ride away toward the 



SHOT THAT CLEARED THE AIR 265 

White House. But the shadow of war met him 
on the threshold of his new dwelling and entered 
with him. The first official report he received 
was from Anderson, saying that the food in Fort 
Sumter was almost exhausted, and that his little 
garrison would have to surrender unless help 
came speedily. Accompanying this were esti- 
mates by army officers showing that it would re- 
quire a force of twenty thousand to relieve the 
fort. 

To send twenty thousand men to Fort Sumter 
was a physical impossibility. The entire United 
States Army at that time only numbered seven- 
teen thousand, one hundred and thirteen men, 
and fourteen thousand of these were on duty in 
distant parts of the country, guarding the long 
Canadian and Mexican frontiers and protecting 
settlers from hostile Indians. Yet Anderson's 
little band could not be left to starve. General 
Scott recommended that Sumter be evacuated as a 
military necessity; but the new administration 
was not willing to do this, and it was decided to 
notify the Confederates that a ship carrying food, 
but no troops, was on its way. If they chose to 
fire upon a ship taking bread to hungry soldiers, 
it would be plain that the South was indeed the 
aggressor. 

The South chose to do this. Anderson was 



266 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

summoned to surrender. He made the only an- 
swer a gallant officer could make; and on the 
morning of April 12, just as the outlines of the 
fort became visible against the eastern sky, a 
puff of white smoke issued from a rebel battery, 
and a shell rose in a lazy graceful curve to de- 
scend upon Sumter. Soon all the threatening 
batteries were in action, and the fort was return- 
ing their fire with vigor. It held out for a day 
and a half, until all Anderson's cartridges had 
been used, the wooden buildings inside the fort 
were on fire, and its flagstaff had been shot away. 
Then, having neither food nor ammunition, he 
was obliged to surrender. 

The news stirred the North as it had not been 
stirred since Lexington. That first slow shot of 
the war cleared the air as if by magic. Instantly 
all talk of compromise ceased. Men whose minds 
had been groping all winter through a maze of 
sophistry knew at once where they stood. No 
matter how they had wavered the day before, 
they were now distinctly for the Union or against 
it. About one third of the officers in the regular 
army resigned their commissions to enter the 
Confederate service; and there was a great ex- 
odus of Southerners from government positions 
in Washington. Many men who had held high 
office had already taken their departure; but oth- 



SHOT THAT CLEARED THE AIR 267 

ers emulated Buchanan's unfaithful ministers and 
kept their places under the Government as long 
as they could, while working for its destruction. 
During the time between Lincoln's inauguration 
and the firing on Sumter one of the most difficult 
tasks of the new administration had been to dis- 
tinguish loyal men from disloyal. After this day 
there was no such trouble. Hundreds of desks 
in the Government offices were vacant, but the 
men who remained could be trusted. 

Fort Sumter fell on the fourteenth of April. 
The next day President Lincoln issued a procla- 
mation calling Congress to meet on the coming 
fourth of July, and asking the country for sev- 
enty-five thousand volunteers. The telegraph 
had come into use since the last war and quickly 
as wires could bring them, answers flashed back 
to him bringing offers of service from individual 
men, from companies and regiments. There was 
not a town in the North that failed to hold its 
meeting and send its assurance of support, not a 
lonely farm-house in which love of country did 
not flame up to overmaster all other affections. 
Men went about stern-lipped and women pale, 
but each was ready to make the needed sacrifice. 

So the war opened. At first no one realized 
how long it would be. Both sides were confident 
of an early and easy victory. The Confederates 



268 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

predicted that their flag would float over the 
Capitol at Washington in six weeks. Instead, 
the struggle lasted four years, and by the time it 
ended the number of soldiers who had fought in 
it on both sides, taken together, came near equal- 
ing the total number of white people, men, women, 
and children, who had been alive in the land when 
the Declaration of Independence was signed. 



CHAPTER XX 

BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER 

FOUR other States had joined the Confed- 
eracy, so the rebellion numbered eleven in 
all: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, 
Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louis- 
iana, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Texas; a solid 
compact block, occupying more than one quarter 
of the entire area of the Union. These revolted 
States held the advantage of position. In mili- 
tary speech, they could operate along interior 
lines. Supposing the whole country to resemble 
in shape an open fan, the Confederacy occupied 
that part nearer the handle and, consequently, 
need move its armies only a comparatively short 
distance to reach any point menaced by its op- 
ponents. 

To put down the rebellion the North must ac- 
complish four things : blockade Southern ports so 
that the South could neither sell its cotton nor re- 
ceive supplies from abroad ; gain undisputed con- 
trol of the Mississippi River, in order to cut off 
food supplies from the West; reestablish its au- 
thority in all the revolted territory; and last, but 

269 



2;o THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

not least, gain possession of Richmond, the rebel 
capital. Looked at merely in this way, the South 
had by far the easier task, for it did not have to 
go out and conquer a single foot of territory ; it 
need only hold what it already possessed. On the 
other hand, it was fighting for its life against a 
Government with three times its population and 
with greater resources. But while this was true, 
the North at the moment had only about three 
thousand regular troops available, and the prom- 
ise of seventy-five thousand untrained volunteers 
called out to serve for only three months, with 
which to quell a revolt that had already spread 
over an area larger than that of France, Belgium, 
Holland, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria- 
Hungary combined. Lincoln said sadly that the 
task before him was greater than that which con- 
fronted Washington. English historians have 
asserted that it was greater than the one Napo- 
leon set himself when he invaded Russia to his 
own undoing. Europe was of the opinion that 
it was a task quite beyond President Lincoln's 
powers. 

On one point the combatants stood upon equal 
footing. They were equally unprepared in a 
military way. All of the first year and much of 
the second passed before the practical details of 
conflict were brought to a state of real efficiency. 



BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER 271 

On both sides there were hordes of volunteers to 
organize and drill and equip. Supplies for feed- 
ing them had to be provided, means of transpor- 
tation arranged, all the energies and resources 
of a great nation changed from a peace basis to 
a war basis. Equipping and moving soldiers had 
become a less simple task than it was in the days 
of Washington. Not only were the numbers 
vastly greater, but military requirements had in- 
creased in proportion. The telegraph could now 
flash orders from place to place, and railroads 
could move troops at a speed undreamed of when 
Washington made his swift march from the Hud- 
son down to Yorktown; and just because this was 
possible, it became necessary. It must not only be 
done, but be done quickly, or the other side would 
do it first and gain an advantage. The old days 
of a ragged army that swarmed over fields and 
fences, discharged its flint-locks at the enemy and 
ran, to come together again farther up the road 
or to scatter like particles of quicksilver to its 
homes, were gone forever. Yet the armies of the 
Civil War kept many of the traits of those earlier 
American soldiers. They were agile and re- 
sourceful and adaptable. Men could be found in 
any volunteer regiment with a working knowl- 
edge of any machine or of any engineering prob- 
lem that might confront them; but now it was 



272 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

more a question of organization and effective 
team-work than it had ever been before. 

Man for man there was little difference be- 
tween the combatants. It was literally a war of 
brothers, and in bravery and endurance both 
proved worthy sons of the farmer-armies that de- 
fied cold and nakedness under Washington. It 
was the first time that men of the same race, 
trained in the same way, fought against each 
other on American soil. Pray God it may be the 
last. 

Meantime, while armies North and South were 
being trained, and resources bent to the demands 
of war, battles were fought, and three great fields 
of conflict developed in which fighting went on 
through the four years, not progressively as had 
been the case during the Revolution, but con- 
tinuously, side by side. The first field was the 
same as that over which the later campaigns of 
the Revolution were fought. It extended from 
the Alleghanies to the Atlantic, and from Chesa- 
peake Bay down to Florida. The second field lay 
between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, 
while the third stretched from that river west- 
ward. The banners of certain Western recruits 
bore the legend, "The rebels have closed the Mis- 
sissippi; we must cut our way to the Gulf with 



BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER 273 

our swords." The fighting in the two Western 
fields was mainly for this purpose or to gain con- 
trol of vital points on the railroads that now con- 
nected the West with the East. Until toward the 
end of the war military movements in the West 
and East were entirely independent of each other. 
Both at the beginning and the end of the conflict 
interest centered mainly in the East, partly be- 
cause it was in this field that the rival capitals 
were situated, scarcely a hundred miles apart. 
Each side was anxious to capture that of its ad- 
versary, and the distance was so short that it 
seemed, even to the armies themselves, possible to 
do it at once. 

Dividing the first field of war from the second, 
lay the Shenandoah Valley, like a long green tun- 
nel, its northern end opening into Pennsylvania, 
its side toward the sea screened by the Blue Ridge, 
easternmost of the many mountain walls of the 
Alleghanies. It proved most useful for purposes 
of surprise, and up and down it large bodies of 
troops, especially cavalry, moved undetected or, 
when detected, played hide-and-seek with their 
pursuers in order to escape through one of the 
numerous mountain passes. This green tunnel 
of the Shenandoah and the streams running diag- 
onally across Virginia and the Carolinas to the 



274 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

sea, which had so troubled King George's men, 
played their distinctive part in the Eastern field 
of war. 

Possibly at the outset the volunteers from the 
South made more effective soldiers than those 
from the North, because in proportion to their 
numbers more of them were used to an outdoor 
life. It is certain that until the hard knocks of 
battle developed great commanders on the Union 
side the Confederates had the more skilful offi- 
cers. The two greatest were Thomas Jonathan 
Jackson, know as "Stonewall" for his steadiness 
in battle, and Robert E. Lee, son of "Lighthorse 
Harry" of the Revolution. Old General Scott, 
who was hard to please, thought Lee the most 
promising officer in the army. Knowing that 
advancing age and disease must soon end his 
own career, he had been anxious to place the new 
volunteer Union army under this younger man's 
command. The offer was made, and caused Lee 
a bitter struggle. He did not think the South 
justified in secession; yet his belief in state rights 
was so strong that, when Virginia made her 
choice, he felt he could not take up arms against 
his native State and, acting on this conviction, re- 
signed his commission in the United States Army. 
Soon he became the idolized leader of the Con- 
federate soldiers and of the civilian population 



BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER 275 

as well. Indeed, as time went on, he became the 
mainstay of the whole movement, for Jefferson 
Davis did not make as satisfactory a president 
as the South had expected. 

Yet Davis had seemed far better equipped and 
qualified by experience for his task than Lincoln 
for his. Lincoln entered upon his heavy duties 
as President in time of war with very little official 
training. He had held an obscure postmaster- 
ship when a young man, and in middle life had 
served one short term in Congress. He had no 
military experience whatever, unless that fron- 
tier campaign against Blackhawk in which he en- 
listed as a lad could be dignified by the name. 
Davis, on the contrary, had been educated at West 
Point, had served with distinction in the Mexican 
War, and had held important civil offices, includ- 
ing those of United States senator and secretary 
of war. But, as the months and years went by, 
Davis made an increasing number of enemies, 
both in military and civil life, while Lincoln, with 
no schooling except such as life and the prompt- 
ings of his own great heart gave him, grew to 
dominate the gigantic struggle as Washington 
dominated the struggle of the Revolution. 

On the Confederate side we see a rather shad- 
owy president, and beside him Lee, a very real 
and soldierly general. On the Union side the 



276 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

generals are shadowy compared to Lincoln. His 
tall form, with its slight, unmilitary stoop and 
civilian dress, with its careworn, kindly face that 
quivers in sudden sympathy or smiles with whim- 
sical mirth or is lighted by an inner fire that 
clothes it momentarily with the majesty of 
God's own messenger, looms as the colossal fig- 
ure of the time, — a figure with hands extended in 
friendship through the smoke and tragedy of war. 
Not all who saw him could recognize his great- 
ness. He was too simple, too little concerned 
with appearances, to impress those who were look- 
ing for a hero according to pattern. To some he 
seemed merely a well-meaning man elected by 
evil chance to a place too large for him to fill. He 
did not escape criticism, much of it sincere, some 
venomous, some merely contemptuous. But the 
plain people, whom he loved and trusted, trusted 
him in turn, and as years have passed and the 
reputations of the men of the Civil War have 
found their true level, we see how greatly he over- 
topped them all. 

He did not wait for Congress to convene be- 
fore taking further war measures. He very 
quickly proclaimed a blockade of the Southern 
ports, called for still more volunteers to serve 
for a longer period than three months, and issued 
orders for the purchase of ships, the transporta- 



BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER 277 

tion of soldiers, for money to be advanced to a 
committee of safety in New York, and the like, 
though at the moment there was no law that gave 
him specific power to do any of these things. 
When Congress convened, he explained what he 
had done and why. Needless to say, Congress 
quickly legalized all these measures. In his first 
message to Congress President Lincoln called 
the war a struggle to maintain in the world that 
sort of government whose "object is to elevate 
the condition of men," and "to lift artificial 
weights from all shoulders." He believed the 
plain people understood this, for, he said, 
though so many officers had resigned to go 
south, not one common soldier or one com- 
mon sailor was known to have deserted his 
flag. 

It took time to get the new regiments together. 
As in the case of all wars fought by unmilitary 
people, this one began slowly, almost hesitatingly ; 
and during the first weeks occurrences that later 
would have received hardly any notice seemed of 
immense importance. When President Lincoln's 
brilliant young friend Lieutenant Ellsworth was 
killed at Alexandria as he lowered a Confeder- 
ate flag, the whole country mourned, and his 
body was taken to lie in state in the White 
House. 



278 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

The surrender of Fort Sumter had been 
brought about without the loss of a single life. 
It was not in South Carolina, but in Maryland, on 
soil that finally remained in the Union, that the 
first blood of the Civil War was shed. Volun- 
teers from the North were ordered to rendezvous 
in Washington, and to do so, they had to pass 
through Baltimore, where pro-slavery feeling ran 
high. There were two railroad stations in the 
city, several blocks apart, and on April 19, as the 
Massachusetts Sixth, the first regiment to reach 
Baltimore armed and equipped on its way to the 
capital, was marching from one of these stations 
to the other, it was assailed with missiles and fire- 
arms, and a running fight took place, in which 
four soldiers were killed and thirty wounded, 
while the attacking force lost about four times as 
many. That night all Maryland was in an up- 
roar. Railroad bridges were burned to prevent 
other regiments coming in, and for almost a week 
Washington was cut off from the rest of the 
world. For three days it had no communication 
with the North even by mail or telegraph. 

Only two days before this riot Virginia had 
passed its Ordinance of Secession, and its gov- 
ernor had ordered the seizure of the United States 
Navy Yard at Norfolk, and the arsenal at Har- 
per's Ferry. With Virginia definitely pledged 



BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER 279 

to rebellion and Maryland in such treasonable 
turmoil, the fate of the ten miles of territory 
squeezed in between them, upon which the Fed- 
eral City is built, seemed extremely doubtful. 
It was just at this moment, too, that the resigna- 
tions of government officials were most numer- 
ous and bewildering. The commandant of the 
Washington Navy Yard, and the quartermaster 
general of the army departed to accept positions 
under Jefferson Davis, and Lee made his final de- 
cision. With such trusted public servants going 
over to the enemy and communication cut off en- 
tirely from the North, Washington seemed men- 
aced equally from within and without. General 
Scott hastily prepared it for a siege. He bar- 
ricaded the Capitol and other public buildings, 
seized the principal supplies of provisions and the 
flour that was in the mills, and placed detachments 
of the soldiers already in the city where they would 
be most useful. The inhabitants, meanwhile, 
watched these proceedings in growing exultation 
or terror, according to their secret sympathies. 
By common consent business was suspended. 
Shops remained closed and shuttered. The de- 
serted streets echoed to the clank of military pa- 
trols, and walls of dwelling-houses to the whispers 
of most startling rumors. It was known that 
other regiments of volunteers were on the way, 



280 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

but as day followed day and they did not arrive, 
suspense increased. Where could they be? 
Even President Lincoln, usually self-controlled 
and slow to voice blame, was goaded into saying 
to the wounded men of the Massachusetts Sixth 
who called upon him : "I begin to believe there is 
no North. . . . You are the only real thing." 

It was not until the early morning of April 25, 
after a weary roundabout journey by way of An- 
napolis, to avoid Baltimore, — a journey diversi- 
fied by bridge-building and track-laying and en- 
gine-mending, — that the soldiers of the New 
York Seventh came into town, tired and hungry, 
but triumphant at being the first to break the 
blockade. They marched up Pennsylvania Ave- 
nue to the White House, band playing and colors 
flying; and as they marched, every heart in Wash- 
ington seemed to catch their splendid rhythmic 
swing. All thought of danger and all taint of 
treason were swept away. "The presence of this 
single regiment seemed to turn the scales of fate," 
says an eye-witness. "Cheer upon cheer greeted 
them ; windows were thrown up ; houses opened ; 
and the population came forth upon the streets 
as for a holiday." 

Other regiments poured in until Washington 
was an armed camp. But it was the old story. 
The problems of the Revolution, modified, not 













■ rWi iHfc 




>■'£%$';} 











ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

From an unretouched negative made in 186* 



BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER 281 

really altered by modern inventions and eighty 
years of history, confronted those whose task it 
was to make this new volunteer army effective. 
Everybody was eager and willing and filled with 
an untrained enthusiasm that often defeated its 
own ends. Fortunately, the enemy was equally 
hampered by the same cause. 

May passed in preparations on both sides, and 
the great machine of war grew, steadily if slowly, 
in its dreadful efficiency. In June small engage- 
ments began, to occur. In July the first real bat- 
tle took place. The people of the North, not yet 
schooled to the dreary waiting of war, clamored, 
"Forward to Richmond." There was reason in 
this if the three months' volunteers were to have 
any part in the movement, since their term of ser- 
vice was fast running out. General Scott pre- 
ferred not to move until fall. He wished to spend 
the interval in drill, and then, after blockading 
the Atlantic coast by means of the navy, to sweep 
down the Mississippi River and end the war in 
one grand battle at New Orleans. But the pub- 
lic was too impatient to see the wisdom of encir- 
cling the Confederacy before strangling it, and 
ridiculed the plan, calling it "Scott's Anaconda." 
The old general was ill and unable to carry it out 
himself, and as no one of the younger officers 
adopted it with enthusiasm, it lapsed. 



282 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

General Beauregard, the Confederate officer 
who had directed the bombardment of Fort Sum- 
ter, was now at Manassas Junction, thirty-two 
miles southwest of Washington, drilling twenty- 
five thousand Southerners. There was another 
force of ten thousand Confederates under Gen- 
eral Joseph E. Johnston in the neighborhood of 
Winchester and Harper's Ferry, within support- 
ing distance of Beauregard. The plan adopted 
in preference to Scott's ''Anaconda," was for 
General Irvin McDowell to march from Wash- 
ington against Manassas, while General Patter- 
son, an older officer who had served in the War of 
1812, led against Johnston the regiments of Penn- 
sylvanians that he was training near Harper's 
Ferry. This would oppose double numbers to 
Johnston and prevent his joining Beauregard. 

It was on the morning of July 16 that General 
McDowell, with his twenty-eight thousand sol- 
diers, marched out from the circle of forts that 
had sprung up like magic around Washington 
to begin his advance on Beauregard, which was 
to be the first step in the movement "Forward 
to Richmond." Beauregard posted his men and 
waited behind a sluggish stream, called Bull Run, 
that winds its tortuous way not far from Manas- 
sas. After two days of reconnoitering McDow- 



BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER 283 

ell began the battle on Sunday morning, July 21, 
by crossing Bull Run to attack his enemy's left 
flank. The attack began at nine o'clock instead 
of at daylight as planned, owing to confusion on 
the march; but even with this handicap the Un- 
ion lines pressed forward steadily all the morning, 
coming to a halt about noon, partly because of the 
fatigue of the troops, partly because from that 
point on the advantage of the ground lay entirely 
with the Confederates. 

With little hope of doing anything except to les- 
sen the force of his defeat, Beauregard hurriedly 
gathered his artillery and supporting regiments 
in a semicircle of defense at the top of a hill, keep- 
ing his guns well hidden among the young pines 
at the edge of a wood. The nature of the ground 
made a combined Union advance impossible ; bri- 
gade after brigade attempted to go forward and 
failed; a Union battery was lost by mistaking 
a Confederate regiment for Federal soldiers. 
Then seven Confederate regiments appeared sud- 
denly from an unexpected quarter, and the Union 
troops were seized with a belief that Johnston had 
arrived from Harper's Ferry. The belief spread, 
and they half marched, half ran from the field, 
demoralization increasing at every step, until it 
reached a disgraceful stage of panic among army 



284 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

teamsters and camp-followers. These, joined by 
stragglers from the ranks, did not stop until they 
had crossed the bridges over the Potomac and had 
entered Washington, where, naturally, their com- 
ing produced great consternation. 

McDowell's soldiers had been quite right in be- 
lieving that they were face to face with Johnston's 
regiments, but entirely wrong in thinking them 
fresh reinforcements. Through the incompe- 
tence of General Patterson, Johnston's entire 
force had been able to slip away and join Beaure- 
gard on the day before the battle, and McDowell's 
men had been fighting them all the time. 

It would be difficult to say which side was the 
more astonished at the outcome of the battle. 
Several members of Congress who had gone out 
to view it as interested spectators found them- 
selves even more interested prisoners. At first 
the Confederates dared not believe their senses, 
and thought it not a victory, only a lull before 
a fresh attack. Then, as the Union army kept on 
retreating, their spirits soared, and they became 
confident not alone of final success, but that the 
nations of Europe would speedily recognize their 
new government. As to casualties, both sides 
suffered equally. General Johnston reported 
that his army was "more disorganized by victory 



BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER 285 

than that of the United States by defeat" ; and de- 
spite their success, the Confederates felt unable 
to begin a forward movement until the following 
spring. Meantime they turned Manassas into a 
fortified camp. 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE KNELL OF THE OLD NAVY 

ONE of the first efforts of the Government 
had been to establish a blockade of the 
Southern ports in order to prevent the shipment 
of cotton to Europe or the importing of supplies 
into the Confederacy. International law requires 
that such a blockade, to be legal, must be effective. 
As most of the forty-two naval vessels then in 
commission were on foreign stations and about 
two hundred and fifty naval officers of the United 
States followed their confreres of the army into 
the service of the Confederate States, the Govern- 
ment was ill-equipped to blockade nearly three 
thousand miles of coast containing almost two 
hundred harbors. Repairs to old ships and work 
upon new ones were hurried to the utmost; pur- 
chases were made of every type of vessel that 
could carry a gun; and a commission was ap- 
pointed to inspect new inventions and study the 
subject of ironclads, then new in naval warfare. 
As rapidly as the improvised fleets could be 
brought together they were sent to operate 

286 



THE KNELL OF THE OLD NAVY 287 

against points held by the enemy; and in six 
months the herculean task of an effective block- 
ade was accomplished. 

Late in August a small fleet under Flag-officer 
Stringham silenced the forts at Hatteras Inlet 
and captured twenty-five Confederate guns and 
several hundred prisoners without the loss of a 
man on the Union fleet. In November, Captain 
Dupont, with a more formidable expedition of 
fifty ships, including transports, gained posses- 
sion of Port Royal Sound and opened the way for 
the Union occupation of the whole network of sea 
islands between Charleston and Savannah. Nei- 
ther of these successes could obliterate the mem- 
ory of Bull Run, but they were almost the only 
victories the North had to dwell upon in the 
closing months of 1861. 

The Confederates had virtually no navy, but 
Jefferson Davis answered Lincoln's proclamation 
of a blockade by granting letters to blockade-run- 
ners, who began, after the efficient fashion of 
colonial days and the War of 1812, to elude the 
Union squadrons and carry on their exciting and, 
when successful, highly profitable trade. One 
of these came near bringing about war between 
England and the United States, for it carried to 
Cuba as passengers James M. Mason and John 
Slidell, ex-senators of the United States, who 



288 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

were being sent by the Confederate Government 
to represent its interests in England and France. 
They reached Havana in safety, and took pass- 
age for England on the British mail steamer 
Trent. Captain Charles Wilkes of the United 
States Navy, commanding the San Jacinto, 
learned of their presence on the Trent and, stop- 
ping that vessel on November 8, 1861, near the 
coast of Cuba, took the rebel emissaries prisoner, 
allowing the Trent to proceed on her way. He 
should have brought the English ship into port 
with the prisoners, for, by allowing her to go on, 
he put it out of the power of his Government to 
prove under international law that his act was 
justified. There was tremendous excitement in 
England; and Lord Lyons, the British minister 
at Washington, was instructed to demand a suit- 
able apology and the release of the prisoners 
within one week. 

The capture had created equal but more pleas- 
urable excitement in the North, and the public 
could not accept the news as true when it was an- 
nounced that Mason and Slidell were to be re- 
leased in accordance with the British demand. 
President Lincoln and all his cabinet had shared 
in the first rejoicing; but second thoughts showed 
them not only that Captain Wilkes had put it out 
of their power to prove their case, but that by giv- 



THE KNELL OF THE OLD NAVY 289 

ing up these men they would be gaining a greater 
victory over a greater power than if they kept 
them. If they retained them, the North would 
be richer by a transient glow of elation and two 
Confederate prisoners. If they gave them up, 
they would force England to admit the principle 
for which the United States went to war in 18 12. 
In that contest England had maintained her right 
of search and seizure. She had stopped our ships 
and taken off such men as she chose. Not even in 
the Treaty of Ghent had she been willing to admit 
that this was wrong; but now that one of our cap- 
tains had stopped a British ship and taken off 
certain persons, she was protesting vigorously. 
Clearly the thing to do was to let them go and thus 
establish out of her own mouth the unrighteous- 
ness of her former position and the correctness of 
our own. But it is hard to give up two birds in 
the hand for even a very brilliant one in the bush ; 
and to the public the giving up of these Confeder- 
ate envoys seemed a sorry thing and added not a 
little to the gloom in which the year closed for 
the Union cause. 

The one important Union success in the East 
during the first part of 1862 was the sea-fight be- 
tween the Monitor and Merrimac in Hampton 
Roads on March 9. From the first great interest 
had been taken in new devices to enforce the 



290 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

blockade. Advertisements asked inventors to 
submit plans, which were examined by a commit- 
tee of naval experts. Three of the most promis- 
ing were recommended for trial. One of them 
Avas the invention of John Ericsson, a naturalized 
American of Swedish birth, a man of great orig- 
inality and long experience in engineering. Pub- 
lic humor described his invention as "a cheese-box 
on a raft," which pictured not only its appearance, 
but his actual intention. He had noticed that 
timber rafts off the Norwegian coast were never 
sunk ; the waves simply washed over them. So 
he made his boat a thin, almost raft-like struc- 
ture, over which the waves could wash, and which 
would present very little surface, either above or 
below the water line, to enemy guns. On this 
he placed a revolving tower, heavily armored. 

The Confederates were also experimenting 
with the new device of ironclads. One of the 
ships that fell into their hands at the beginning 
of the war was the United States steam frigate 
Merrimac. She had been fired in an effort to 
destroy her usefulness, but had only burned to 
the water's edge and sunk. Her new owners 
raised her and, finding hull and engines unin- 
jured, fitted her with a wedge-shaped prow of 
cast-iron and a steeply sloping roof plated with 



THE KNELL OF THE OLD NAVY 291 

iron armor. Under this they installed a battery 
of ten guns. 

Rumors of progress on each of these vessels 
reached the other side ; but interest in the North 
was so centered upon movements on land that 
for the moment the rebel vessel, which had been 
rechristened the Virginia, was forgotten. On 
March 8 she appeared at the mouth of the Eliza- 
beth River channel, looking, with her sloping roof 
and low prow, very "like a huge, half -submerged 
crocodile." She headed directly for Newport 
News, where three Union ships lay at anchor un- 
der the guns of Fort Monroe, with two others 
near Newport News, six miles away. The ships 
near the fort immediately started out to meet her, 
but water being low in the channel, they grounded 
and could only send an occasional useless shot into 
the fight. The two ships near Newport News, the 
sailing frigate Congress and the Cumberland, 
prepared for action. The Mcrrimac rushed past 
the Congress at full speed, exchanging a broad- 
side as she went, and made for the Cumberland. 
Neither the guns on the wooden ships nor the 
shore batteries seemed to have the least effect 
upon her. The iron hail bounded and glanced 
from her plated roof like rubber balls, and when 
she struck the Cumberland, the crash of her prow 



292 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

through timbers and hull could be heard above 
the roar of the guns. The Cumberland was 
forced back upon her anchors with great violence, 
and when the Merrimac drew off she left a hole 
the size of a hogshead, into which the waters 
rushed. Pumps were of no avail against such a 
flood, and the Merrimac, hovering near, contin- 
ued to fire at the doomed vessel. Officers and 
crew stuck to their posts. The last gun upon the 
Cumberland was fired when the water was run- 
ning into the muzzle of the gun alongside. Even 
after orders were given for the men to save them- 
selves, some clung to the ship and went down 
with her as she sank in fifty feet of water with 
her colors flying. 

The Merrimac 's iron prow had been wrenched 
off, and two of her guns were useless, but she 
turned her attention to the Congress. The Con- 
gress, seeking to escape, ran ashore where the 
Merrimac could not follow her, but where she was 
helpless before her enemy's guns. Her com- 
mander was killed, and she finally struck her col- 
ors and was burned. Then, surrounded by the 
five small tugs and steamers that had accompan- 
ied her to the scene of destruction, the Merrimac 
passed down the channel again to anchor under 
her own shore batteries, expecting to return and 
finish her work in the morning. 



THE KNELL OF THE OLD NAVY 293 

Two of the Union ships that had grounded had 
been hauled off by tugs with great difficulty and 
had returned to Fortress Monroe. The Minne- 
sota still remained hard aground; but in view of 
this terrible new engine of war, it seemed imma- 
terial where any of them might be. The newly 
completed telegraph line from Fortress Monroe 
carried the depressing news of the battle to Wash- 
ington, where there was little sleep for any one in 
authority that night. Visions of an entire fleet 
destroyed, the blockade broken, Washington 
burned, and the administration in flight, and of 
the foreign intervention in behalf of the Confed- 
erates that would surely follow such events, 
rushed through the mind of more than one officer 
as orders were given to do the inadequate little 
that could be done in preparation. 

By the light of the burning Congress a rebel 
pilot had seen a strange craft glide into the waters 
of Hampton Roads. It was Ericsson's boat, the 
Monitor, just arrived from New York. The 
older officers of the Navy had showed small in- 
terest or had condemned the new invention 
untried. Lieutenant Worden had accepted the 
command, and here, at the very moment of his 
coming, was his great opportunity. A little after 
midnight he took his station near the Minnesota. 
Next morning when the Merrimac appeared, ex- 



294 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

pecting to find her easy prey, the "cheese-box on 
a raft" went out to the encounter. She was a 
mere pigmy in comparison and carried only two 
guns. But she drew only ten feet of water to the 
Mcrrimac's twenty-two, which allowed her great 
freedom of action, and her revolving turret per- 
mitted her to point those two guns where she 
chose. The little craft seemed under perfect con- 
trol, and the Merrimac's broadsides passed harm- 
lessly over her low, flat deck. For three hours 
the spectators on shore witnessed a most exciting 
naval duel. She not only circled around the 
larger vessel, but made fearlessly for its rudder 
and for the propellor, both of which might easily 
have been disabled. Her guns could be seen only 
at the moment they were discharged; then the 
turret whirled, and they became invisible until 
ready to fire again. 

As the battle progressed, the consumption of 
coal and ammunition aboard the Merrimac raised 
her dangerously, exposing her water-line, where 
the armor plating was only an inch thick. Al- 
though no actual damage had yet been done on 
either side, it was evident that the Monitor was 
the better ship and was gradually tiring out her 
opponent. Then an accident happened to the 
Monitor's commander. Fler pilot house was 
made of great iron bars piled up after the manner 



THE KNELL OF THE OLD NAVY 295 

of a log cabin, with half inch spaces between 
through which to observe the enemy and steer 
the ship. Lieutenant Worden was standing in 
this pilot-house giving orders, when one of the 
Merrimac' s shells struck the bars between which 
he was looking, sending smoke and iron-dust 
into his face with such force as to blind him. For 
twenty minutes the ship floated without guidance 
while he was being looked after. Then, as his 
second in command turned to face their antag- 
onist again he saw that the Merrimac was steam- 
ing away in the direction of Elizabeth River. He 
fired a few shots after her, but she refused his 
challenge. 

Counted by blows actually received, it was a 
drawn battle ; but that three hours' fight in Hamp- 
ton Roads changed naval warfare all over the 
world. It sounded the knell of the "oak-ribbed 
and white winged" ships of the past, with which 
Americans had won their full share of glory. 
Steam had already come to replace sails; after 
this fight oak gave way to iron and steel. Be- 
fore the year was over, both these pioneer vessels 
came to dramatic ends ; the Merrimac by fire, the 
Monitor foundering in a gale off tlatteras. But 
there were ironclads of a different pattern in the 
United States Navy before the Merrimac went 
up in flame ; and the Monitor gave her name to a 



296 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

long succession of turreted ships, the two types 
being studied and improved until the submarine 
appeared to add its terror to the sea. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE CHOSEN ONE 

AFTER the defeat at Bull Run the North 
abandoned all hope of an early and easy 
victory. The shock of that unpleasant awaken- 
ing was not lessened by the loss, late in August, 
of the battle of Wilson's Creek in Missouri, when 
General Lyon attempted by a sudden attack with 
five thousand men to scatter three times their 
number. The enemy was crippled, but the death 
of Lyon, who was killed in a bayonet charge, was 
a very grave loss to the Unionists, for he was 
their most effective leader in Missouri. 

Convinced that the contest was to be a long 
one, the country now settled down to the task of 
raising a new army enlisted to serve for three 
years or for the war. Heaven seemed to point 
to a commander for it, and George B. McClellan 
was summoned to Washington. He was an- 
other of those brilliant graduates of West Point 
who received brevets for gallant conduct under 
Scott in Mexico, a man of most attractive pres- 
ence and great personal magnetism, whose story 

297 



298 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

begins with an opulence possible only in fairy 
tales or in America. It might have ended in the 
same magnificent manner, had not the wicked fay 
of legend been on hand at his birth to add her 
curse to his sheaf of gifts. 

Three years before the war began he had re- 
signed from the army to engage in railroad en- 
terprises. At the breaking out of the war he 
was a railroad president; but he dropped his new 
duties to enter the service, and the governor of 
Ohio made him a major-general of volunteers. 
His old commission in the regular army had en- 
titled him to command one hundred men; this 
new one gave him authority over ten thousand of 
the three months' volunteers. A very few weeks 
later General Scott changed it to one of similar 
grade in the regular army, and gave him charge 
of a military department stretching from West 
Virginia to Missouri, a leap in rank and responsi- 
bility seldom equaled even in the history of ro- 
mance. His instructions were to encourage 
Union sentiment in western Virginia; this he 
did so well that West Virginia seceded from se- 
cession to come back into the Union as a sepa- 
rate State. The most gratifying of the early 
engagements had occurred in his department, 
when a detachment of one thousand Confederate 
cavalry was surprised and put to flight at Philippi. 



THE CHOSEN ONE 299 

This was followed about the middle of July by 
a three days' campaign in which his officers 
achieved the victories of Rich Mountain and Car- 
rick's Ford, with very small Union losses, and 
results that he summarized in the comforting 
words, "Our success is complete, and secession is 
killed in this country." 

Here seemed to be the man who was to com- 
pensate the North for the loss of Robert E. Lee. 
He was ordered to Washington soon after the 
battle of Bull Run and began his duties by ener- 
getically clearing the city of stragglers. After 
this he set to work to build up the magnificent 
Army of the Potomac, which played such a promi- 
nent part in the history of the war. He per- 
formed miracles with the raw recruits. Under 
his guidance they seemed to turn into effective 
soldiers almost overnight. They were sent to 
their camps, fell without confusion into brigades 
and divisions, were thoroughly drilled, and well 
equipped; by October he had made of them an 
army one hundred and fifty thousand strong, of 
which any country might be proud. His per- 
sonal success was as great. He was young and 
handsome; his soldiers adored him, and every- 
body in Washington gave way before him. 

At first he was amazed at the consideration 
showed him. 'T find myself in a new and strange 



300 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

situation here," he wrote his wife. "President, 
cabinet, General Scott, and all, deferring to me. 
By some strange operation of magic I seem to 
have become the power of the land." But soon 
he accepted all such deference as a matter of 
course, and before long came to look upon him- 
self as the savior of his country, the one man 
who could bring the Union success. With the 
dawn of that dazzling vision the curse which 
had been dropped in his cradle awoke to take 
effect. He began to suspect everybody of try- 
ing to thwart him, and to have the hallucination 
that the enemy in his front had double or even 
four times his numbers; and his sleep was dis- 
turbed by the dream that Beauregard's army had 
suddenly fallen upon and seized the city of Wash- 
ington. The administration exerted itself to 
give him the best the country could produce in 
the way of arms and supplies and officers; in 
fact a greater proportion of them than should by 
rights have gone to the Army of the Potomac, 
but this only increased his demands for more. 
He entered upon a quarrel with General Scott 
that embittered that brave old officer's last days 
of service. He showed gross disrespect to the 
President, and in his private letters he did not 
hesitate to call the high officials most impolite 
names. 



THE CHOSEN ONE 301 

He might have done all this and welcome had 
he only used his fine army to advantage. The 
high officials in Washington were too intent on 
victory to stand upon ceremony or even to make 
a point of decent treatment. If he had given 
them success all else would have been dismissed 
as a mere matter of taste. They continued to 
do everything possible for him. When General 
Scott retired, he was promoted to his place. All 
that was asked was that he lead the Army of the 
Potomac toward Richmond. The beautiful au- 
tumn weather was at hand, best of all seasons for 
a campaign in that latitude. Eyes of officials 
and of the public turned hopefully upon McClel- 
lan as he galloped with his brilliant staff from 
camp to camp. Review followed review, but his 
army did not move. October passed, then No- 
vember ; the general was never quite ready. The 
President inquired how soon he could have his 
troops in motion. He answered without en- 
thusiasm, "by December 15th, — probably 25th." 
But Christmas found them exactly where they 
had been months before. Then McClellan fell 
seriously ill, and with one accord his soldiers be- 
gan to build huts to shelter them from winter 
storms. Newspaper articles hinting at a speedy 
movement toward Richmond gave way to the 
standing headline, "All quiet on the Potomac," a 



302 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

monotonous announcement that seemed to vibrate 
with ever-increasing sarcasm as the weeks passed. 

When spring came again it was just the same. 
Orders had been given that "the 22d day of Feb- 
ruary be the day for a general movement of the 
land and naval forces of the United States against 
the insurgent forces," both East and West. 
Some of the Western troops were under way two 
weeks before the day appointed, but it was the 
seventeenth of March before McClellan moved. 
The President desired him to advance upon Gen- 
eral Joseph E. Johnston, who was now near 
Manassas with fifty thousand men. McClellan, 
who had one hundred and fifty thousand, feared 
to do this, being sure that the Confederate force 
was greater than his own. Instead, he took his 
army by boat to Fort Monroe, to march from 
there against Richmond up the peninsula between 
the York and James rivers on which the final 
scenes of the Revolution had occurred. This 
left Johnston's army, which he had hesitated to 
attack at Manassas, between himself and his own 
capital ; but that apparently seemed to him a mere 
detail now that he and his Army of the Potomac 
were away from Washington. 

He began by laying regular siege to Yorktown, 
to the astonishment of its eleven thousand de- 
fenders, and allowed them to hold in check the 



THE CHOSEN ONE 303 

one hundred thousand soldiers he had brought 
with him until Johnston could hurry his men 
south and dispose them for battle at Williams- 
burg, midway of the peninsula. The Confed- 
erates slipped away in the night after a battle at 
this point, leaving their wounded on the field, and 
the Army of the Potomac followed them to Fair 
Oaks. Here the Confederates attacked and were 
successful on the first day, but were defeated in 
the second day's fighting. It was in this battle 
that General Johnston was severely wounded and 
General Lee promoted to his place. Evidently 
the new commander was of the opinion that Mc- 
Clellan did not value time, for he spent a month 
in strengthening and resting his army. After 
this, in June, came the week of fighting known 
as the Seven Days' Battles, during which the 
Union pickets got within four miles of Richmond, 
but no nearer. A careful historian says : 

It would be weary and exasperating to recount in de- 
tail the principal episodes of McClellan's operations to 
gain possession of the Confederate capital. The whole 
campaign is a record of hesitation, delay, and mistakes 
in the chief command, brilliantly relieved by the heroic 
fighting and endurance of the troops and subordinate 
officers, gathering honor out of defeat and shedding the 
lustre of renown over a result of barren failure. . . . 
Finally, when he was within four miles of Richmond and 
was attacked by General Lee, he began a retreat to the 



304 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

James River; and after his corps commanders held the 
attacking enemy at bay by a successful battle on each of 
six successive days, he day after day gave up each field. 
. . . On July ist the collected Union army made a stand 
at the battle of Malvern Hill, inflicting a defeat on the 
enemy which practically shattered the Confederate army, 
and in the course of a week caused it to retire within 
the fortifications of Richmond. During all this magnifi- 
cent fighting, however, McClellan was oppressed by the 
apprehension of impending defeat; and even after the 
brilliant victory of Malvern Hill continued his retreat to 
Harrison's Landing, where the Union gunboats on the 
James River assured him of safety and supplies. 

His enemies, who had skill and daring to spare, 
were not slow to take advantage of his state of 
mind. One of the humiliating, if useless, pieces 
of their bravado was the exploit of the Confed- 
erate cavalry leader J. E. B. Stuart, whose force 
rode entirely and defiantly around the Union 
Army, stopping to repair bridges on the way, and 
reentered Richmond unhurt. McClellan's one 
emotion in reporting this seemed to be thankful- 
ness that the Confederate cavalry had done him 
so little harm. 

During the three months of this Peninsular 
Campaign McClellan commanded superior num- 
bers, sometimes twice those of his adversary; yet 
from the time of landing at Fort Monroe he never 
ceased to demand reinforcements or to assail the 
authorities at Washington with bitter faultfind- 




STONEWALL JACKSON 



THE CHOSEN ONE 305 

ing. His state of mind grew worse as the cam- 
paign proceeded. He claimed that the navy did 
not do its part at his siege of Yorktown. He 
never forgave the President and secretary of 
war for holding back General McDowell's force 
of forty thousand men that was part of his own 
army; and toward the end his remonstrances 
grew absolutely mutinous. Perhaps he should 
not be too severely blamed for this; it was in- 
grained, part of his curse. He always wanted 
more troops and saw his opponents through 
lenses that multiplied them many times. As Sec- 
retary Stanton, who was not an even-tempered 
man, once said in a fit of exasperation, "If he had 
a million men, he would swear the enemy had two 
million, and then he would sit down in the mud 
and yell for three." 

The President, more patient, but harassed by 
his unending demands, answered him kindly, but 
with unfailing logic, pointing out the reasons that 
caused them to keep McDowell's corps within 
reach of Washington, and explaining the thou- 
sand other matters to which this complaining gen- 
eral took exception. In the matter of McDow- 
ell's force the reason was plain. A council of 
McClellan's own commanders had agreed that it 
required fifty-five thousand to guard Washington 
adequately. After the Army of the Potomac 



306 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

started on its campaign it was discovered that 
McClellan had left only nineteen thousand behind 
and that half of these were under orders to go 
elsewhere. It was also learned that, with Wash- 
ington virtually undefended, General Stonewall 
Jackson was sweeping up the Shenandoah Valley. 
There seemed nothing to do but to keep McDowell 
where he could protect the capital. 

With his forty thousand and the other troops 
under General Banks and General Fremont, there 
were soldiers enough in and near the Shenan- 
doah to take care of this determined Southerner; 
but the Union commanders lamentably failed to 
work together, and by a series of rapid and skilful 
movements Jackson nearly succeeded in reaching 
Harper's Ferry before he turned and sped back 
in a retreat as remarkable as his advance. 

This forceful general was another one of the 
group that had fought together in Mexico, but 
he was of different fiber; a man of blazing eyes, 
strong personality, and beliefs that bordered on 
mania. At Bull Run, where, by holding an ex- 
posed position against great odds, he did much 
to win the battle, a fellow-officer had been moved 
to cry out in admiration: "See, there is Jack- 
son, standing like a stone wall! Rally on the 
Virginians!" This caught the fancy of his sol- 
diers and gave him a sobriquet that will live in 



THE CHOSEN ONE 307 

history long after the names bestowed upon him 
in baptism are lost to memory. He was religious 
to the point of fanatical enthusiasm. He would 
not post a letter so that it must travel on the Sab- 
bath; but he felt no hesitation in bringing on a 
battle on Sunday, provided he could take his en- 
emy at a disadvantage. In that case it was 
clearly the Lord's will. A hundred times a day 
he could be seen to throw his right arm heaven- 
ward and move his lips in prayer. He was ab- 
solutely certain that the Creator had him under 
His personal protection, and equally sure that the 
Lord favored the Southern cause. He would 
lead his men into the thickest of the fight, "the 
most successful and daring corps commander of 
modern times," praying as he went. 

After his raid in the Shenandoah he returned 
to help Lee in the defense of Richmond and to 
add to McClellan's distress of mind. As the 
Seven Days' Battles proceeded, this emotion 
caused the Union general to send the secretary of 
war a long and insubordinate dispatch charging 
the administration with deliberately failing to 
sustain him, and adding: "If I save this army 
now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to 
you or to any other persons in Washington. You 
have done your best to sacrifice this army." It 
is hard to imagine a general retaining his official 



308 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

head an hour after the receipt of such a dispatch ; 
yet the President answered kindly. It was not 
the injustice or the personal affront contained in 
the charge that occupied Mr. Lincoln's mind, but 
the possibilities of disaster it disclosed. It 
seemed that it might portend the surrender of 
McClellan's entire army. "Save your army at all 
events," he instructed him. "If you have had 
a drawn battle or a repulse, it is the price we pay 
for the enemy not being in Washington." 

A personal visit to the Army of the Potomac 
convinced the President that its situation was not 
so desperate as McClellan thought; but it also 
convinced him that he must make changes in the 
higher military commands. General Henry W. 
Halleck, who had been serving in the West, was 
called to Washington to be general-in-chief, an 
office that had not been filled since McClellan was 
relieved of its duties to take personal command 
of the Army of the Potomac at the beginning of 
the Peninsular Campaign. After assuming his 
new duties, Halleck also visited McClellan. He 
found that McClellan would be satisfied with 
nothing except very heavy reinforcements, with 
a view to renewing his attempt upon Richmond, 
a course that many of his officers deemed unwise. 
He was therefore ordered to withdraw his troops 
to the neighborhood of Washington. This he did 



THE CHOSEN ONE 309 

under protest, to the mingled relief and discour- 
agement of the North. .The losses during the 
Peninsular Campaign had been great and, in ad- 
dition, the Army of the Potomac had contracted 
disease in the Virginia swamps that would haunt 
its soldiers for half a century. And what else 
had the country to show for the three months' 
campaign ? Of personal valor there had been no 
end; but neither the army nor the homes that 
were desolated had need of rivers of blood to 
prove that. 

Disaster did not cease with the withdrawal of 
the army. Even before McClellan's recall the 
accomplished General Pope had been given com- 
mand of the forces under Generals McDowell, 
Fremont and Banks, which were combined under 
the name of the Army of Virginia. Being no 
longer occupied with McClellan, General Lee 
turned his attention upon this new enemy, and 
on August 30 he fought General Pope on the 
old battle-ground at Manassas, where once again 
the Confederates were victorious. At this junc- 
ture McClellan did not behave well. He was re- 
quired to send a large part of the Army of the Po- 
tomac to General Pope, but did so in such a slow, 
half-hearted way that it entirely failed of its ob- 
ject, and convinced the President that he did not 
want his brother-officer to succeed. Indeed, he 



310 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

made the direct suggestion that certain troops re- 
main where they were to protect Washington and 
that Pope be left "to get out of his scrape" as best 
he might. 

This so outraged the feelings of the cabinet 
that the more impulsive members drew up and 
signed a memorandum recommending McClel- 
lan's immediate removal. Cooler heads pre- 
vented it reaching the eye of the President, but 
Mr. Lincoln had no need of written words to in- 
form him of their irritation. He, too, was deeply 
outraged; but this was no moment for mere acts 
of discipline. The telegram announcing Pope's 
defeat indicated that he had lost control of his 
army. McClellan might be everything that they 
feared, but as the President told a close friend: 
"We must use the tools we have. If he cannot 
fight himself, he excels in making others ready 
to fight." Instead of giving him the dismissal he 
richly deserved, therefore, Mr. Lincoln called him 
to take personal charge of the defenses of Wash- 
ington, into which the retreating soldiers were 
coming. 

Thus it was that the man who could not get 
rid of his luck, even by throwing it away, found 
himself once again at the congenial task of or- 
ganizing an army, the kind of work he could 
really do well. Once again the army responded 



THE CHOSEN ONE 311 

to him as if by magic. Then, as Lee had crossed 
into Maryland to rouse the people of that State 
to secession, and General Pope had been assigned 
to other duty, it came about without any definite 
order, but through mere force of circumstances, 
that McClellan's duty changed, and he found 
himself engaged in another active campaign 
against his old antagonist. 

Here, as in the Peninsular Campaign, he had 
double numbers, eighty thousand to Lee's forty 
thousand. Lee acted with no more respect for 
McClellan's fighting ability than formerly; he 
calmly divided his small force, sending part of 
it under Stonewall Jackson to capture Harper's 
Ferry. At this point McClellan had the amazing 
and crowning piece of luck of his whole career. 
A private in his army picked up a packet of cigars 
dropped by a Confederate officer. The paper in 
which they were wrapped proved to be nothing 
less than a copy of an order that disclosed all 
Lee's positions and plans and gave his numbers 
with a definiteness which should have laid forever 
that bogy of which McClellan lived in constant 
dread, the fear of fighting superior forces. The 
weather was perfect, and the roads were in ex- 
cellent condition. Yet with all this, he let the 
precious chance slip through his fingers. Instead 
of retrieving his record, by seeking out Lee and 



312 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

annihilating his army, the best the Union general 
could do was to fight a drawn battle at Antietam ; 
a battle of tremendous losses, after which he al- 
lowed the Confederates to escape across the Po- 
tomac. It is not pleasant to imagine what Lee 
or Stonewall Jackson would have done had the 
opportunity been reversed. Far from being cast 
down, McClellan telegraphed to Washington that 
Maryland and Virginia were "now safe." 

This was too much even for the patience of a 
Lincoln. In a moment of bitterness the Presi- 
dent had spoken of the tented army as "McClel- 
lan's body-guard." Antietam convinced him 
that it was too costly a luxury for an unsuccessful 
general, and early in November McClellan was 
relieved of the command. 

Unfortunately, a whole procession of unsuc- 
cessful generals followed him as commanders of 
the Army of the Potomac. If the wisdom of the 
administration is questioned in waiting for a 
whole year in the hope that McClellan would 
wake from his hallucinations and win victories, 
they give the answer. As President Lincoln 
said, it was necessary to use the tools at hand, and 
no commander better qualified had yet presented 
himself. 

One rare distinction fell to McClellan. It is 
seldom that an unsuccessful general retains the 



THE CHOSEN ONE 313 

respect, let alone the affection, of his troops. 
McClellan had both. "Such a scene as that 
leave-taking had never been known in our army," 
wrote General Couch. "When the chief had 
passed out of sight the romance of war was over 
for the Army of the Potomac," wrote another. 
Men shed tears, and the railway coach in which 
he was to leave was uncoupled from the engine 
and pushed back by frenzied soldiers who called 
down curses on the powers who had replaced him 
by General Burnside, and vowed that McClellan 
should never leave them. He bade them stand 
by their new commander as they had stood by 
him, but he was not himself heroic enough to fol- 
low this patriotic advice. His personal disap- 
pointment was too keen to permit him to remain 
in the army; and his one appearance in history 
after this was in 1864, when he became Presiden- 
tial candidate of a party whose platform declared 
the war to be a failure. That he repudiated the 
platform, yet consented to be the candidate, shows 
the extent of his weakness. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE MAN WHO WAS NOT WANTED 

MEANWHILE, in the West a man was hav- 
ing as hard a time to gain a foothold in the 
army as McClellan was having to spoil his own 
chance of success. If McClellan had been the 
child dowered at birth with many gifts and one 
curse, this other was the child of many handi- 
caps and one talisman. Like McClellan, he had 
graduated at West Point, and had taken his grad- 
uate course in Mexico. Two brevets for gallant 
conduct, special mention in the reports of four 
superior officers, and a record as quartermaster 
hard to excel, were the showing that he brought 
home. But from the time of his return his serv- 
ice in the army had been a series of disappoint- 
ments. He was sent to dismal posts and con- 
demned to work with uncongenial officers. He 
held on until he reached the grade of captain and 
then resigned as McClellan had done, but not, like 
McClellan, to enter the fascinating and still 
new game of railway development. Ill fortune 
dogged him in civil life. What little money he 

314 



MAN WHO WAS NOT WANTED 315 

had been able to save was staked and lost in busi- 
ness ventures. From childhood he had loathed 
his father's trade, which was that of a tanner, 
yet the outbreak of the Civil War found him in 
Illinois, serving on a meager salary as clerk in 
the family leather-store at Galena. William T. 
Sherman, one of his old army comrades, met him 
one day in St. Louis, and reflected that West 
Point was not a good preparation for civil life. 
Personally, this man was not prepossessing, mag- 
netic, or popular. His appearance was distinctly 
unmilitary; he was taciturn to the point of in- 
difference, and he lounged in a way that suggested 
unlimited leisure. Now and again an old rumor 
that he had been asked to resign from the army 
because of excessive drinking lifted its ugly head. 
Probably he and his family and the family friends 
all agreed that he was a good deal of a failure. 

But on a night in April, 1861, when the local 
court-house was packed with people come to- 
gether to discuss the fall of Sumter and the 
President's call for troops, he heard himself 
nominated for chairman. In answer to cries of 
"Grant, Grant !" he rose from his hard bench and 
moved toward the front of the hall, a short man, 
stooping slightly, dressed in a faded soldier's 
overcoat. With some prompting and embarrass- 
ment he got through his duties. It was never 



316 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

easy for him to speak; but there were others to 
supply the oratory. One passionate speech was 
made by a young lawyer, John A. Rawlins, who 
was to become his trusted companion-in-arms. 
As the audience walked home through the dark- 
ness, however, it remembered the few words 
spoken by the man in the old army coat, who had 
talked about the duties of a soldier in a way to 
strip them of spread-eagle fury and to leave his 
hearers earnest and determined. 

After that night Grant never again entered 
his father's store as clerk. He refused to be cap- 
tain of the company that was raised and officered 
before the meeting adjourned; but he cheerfully 
drilled it, and he showed the women of Galena 
about the cut and materials of the uniforms that 
they insisted on making with their own hands. 
When the company left town with much pomp 
and ceremony to be mustered in at Springfield, 
Grant accompanied it. He stood on the side- 
walk unnoticed, carpet-bag in hand, while it 
marched by to the station. A small boy run- 
ning after the soldiers remembered later that he 
was there and that the carpet-bag looked very 
thin. 

The governor of Illinois requested his assist- 
ance for a few weeks in the adjutant-general's 
office. Somebody, seeing him at a desk in the 



MAN WHO WAS NOT WANTED 317 

corner, asked who he was. "Oh, a dead-beat 
military man, a discharged officer of the regu- 
lar army," was the answer. As his work neared 
its end, he wrote a letter tendering his services 
to the Government. It stated that in view of 
past experiences he felt himself "competent to 
command a regiment, if the President, in his 
judgment, should see fit to entrust one to me." 
This letter was never answered. Years after the 
war it was found tucked into an out-of-the-way 
corner. It had not even been decently pigeon- 
holed. Knowing all that this short and ordi- 
nary-looking man was able to do for his country, 
such disrespect leaves one breathless; but it 
strengthens the conviction that there is "a di- 
vinity that shapes our ends." 

While waiting to hear from his letter, Grant 
tried twice to call upon his acquaintance of army 
days, George McClellan, who was at the moment 
a major-general of volunteers, with headquarters 
at Cincinnati. He hoped that for old times' sake 
McClellan might offer him a place on his staff, 
but the young major-general was too busy even 
to receive him. In June, Grant succeeded in be- 
ing made colonel of a rather mutinous regiment 
of Illinois volunteers, and gave it a taste of 
marching and military discipline that soon con- 
vinced it of its mistake in trifling with him. In 



318 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

August he was made brigadier-general of volun- 
teers, and early in September was sent to Cairo, 
Illinois, to take command of Union forces in 
southeast Missouri. This promotion surprised 
him. He "did not know he had done anything 
to inspire such confidence." Neither, apparently, 
did others, for when he arrived at his new head- 
quarters, unheralded, in citizen's dress, his uni- 
form not having reached him, Colonel Oglesby, 
the officer he had come to supplant, mistook him 
for a refugee who wished to be sent North. 
Colonel Oglesby was surrounded by people loqua- 
cious with complaints and with favors to ask. 
When the little man in the rusty coat calmly 
seated himself at the official desk and began writ- 
ing orders, there was a tense moment; but one 
look into his resolute blue eyes was enough, and 
the place was surrendered without question. 

The two Western slave States of Missouri and 
Kentucky had not cast their fortunes with the 
Confederacy. In order to hold them firmly in 
the Union, it was necessary to maintain Union 
forces in each. St. Louis became the headquar- 
ters for those in Missouri ; Louisville an impor- 
tant point for those in Kentucky; and Cairo, 
Grant's new post, situated where the Ohio and 
Mississippi rivers come together and near the 
boundaries of five States, Illinois, Missouri, Ken- 



MAN WHO WAS NOT WANTED 319 

lucky, Tennesse and Arkansas, a great depot of 
army supplies. 

By the beginning of 1862 the military forces of 
the Union had increased from the seventeen 
thousand, one hundred and thirteen, which had 
been the total at the time Fort Sumter was fired 
upon, to about five hundred thousand. Two hun- 
dred and thirty-five thousand of these were in 
Virginia, one hundred thousand at Louisville, an- 
other one hundred thousand was divided between 
St. Louis and Cairo, and the rest were scattered 
at different points, most of them on Indian duty 
in the extreme West. The Confederate armies 
at the same date numbered perhaps two hundred 
and fifty thousand all told. One hundred and 
seventy-five thousand confronted the Army of 
the Potomac, and were magnified by McClellan's 
imagination to three hundred thousand or more, 
according to his fluctuating feelings. Thirty 
thousand were divided between Columbus, Ken- 
tucky, and forts Henry and Donelson, three 
points not far from Cairo within supporting 
distance of each other, though Columbus was 
on the Mississippi River, Fort Henry on the Ten- 
nessee River, and Fort Donelson on the Cumber- 
land. The remainder of the Confederate forces 
were at Nashville, Chattanooga, and the larger 
Mississippi River towns of the Confederacy. 



320 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

At the point where forts Henry and Donelson 
are situated the Tennessee and Cumberland 
rivers flow side by side, not a dozen miles apart, 
while, farther on, their courses diverge in such a 
way that possession of these two forts would 
give all Kentucky and a large part of Tennessee 
into Union hands. It was known that a joint 
movement by water and land could meet little 
Confederate opposition at that time; but General 
Buell, who commanded the Union forces in east- 
ern Kentucky, and General Halleck, then in com- 
mand in Missouri, were too busy with their own 
affairs to combine on this important joint expe- 
dition. 

For several months Grant looked longingly at 
Fort Henry from Cairo or from neighboring 
points to which his duties took him. He was 
anxious to seize it before the Confederates made 
it stronger. Once he asked permission of his su- 
perior officer, General Halleck, to do so, but that 
cautious man refused. Commodore Foote, who 
commanded Union gunboats on the Mississippi 
and its tributaries was, however, as strongly in 
favor of the project as Grant; the two united in 
a request, and it was granted. In this permis- 
sion Fort Donelson was not mentioned. 

After receiving permission, they lost no time. 
It was on February 6, more than two weeks in 




.... - .- ----- 

GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT 



MAN WHO WAS NOT WANTED 321 

advance of the date set in President Lincoln's 
General War Order Number One for a forward 
movement that Grant telegraphed to Washington, 
"Fort Henry is ours," adding in a businesslike 
way, "I shall take and destroy Fort Donelson on 
the 8th." Grant was not over-particular about 
doing things strictly according to rule. Perhaps 
he was the Union general who combined in fair- 
est proportion the knowledge and training ac- 
quired at West Point with the independence of 
thought and act characteristic of the West. If 
he was unable to execute all of an order, he car- 
ried it as far as he could. If his supplies were 
imperfect, he found the best substitute at hand. 
In this case he saw a chance, clearly in line of 
duty, to exceed his actual orders, and he did so. 
Fort Henry being taken, Fort Donelson was 
manifestly the next point to attack. He might 
have kept his promise to the letter, had not the 
weather, which had been bad when the expedition 
set out to capture Fort Henry, grown suddenly 
so much worse that it was impossible to move 
troops faster than at a snail's pace, while wagons 
and artillery could not move at all. 

It was the twelfth before they could even start. 
Then it grew very cold, with sleet and a piercing 
wind that caused the troops acute suffering. 
Many of them were quite new to winter cam- 



322 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

paigning, and even camp-fires had to be forbid- 
den in order to conceal their position from the 
enemy. Meantime the Confederates had re- 
ceived reinforcements that raised their numbers 
from six thousand to about fifteen thousand. On 
the fourteenth the gunboats arrived, and the at- 
tack was begun, Commodore Foote taking part 
until two of his boats were disabled and he was 
himself wounded. Then the gunboats withdrew, 
and the Confederates telegraphed to Richmond 
news of a great victory. 

Next morning, while Grant was calling upon 
the wounded officer on his flagship, the enemy 
began pouring out of Donelson in numbers that 
threatened to overwhelm the Union forces. An 
aide hurried to inform Grant and met him re- 
turning. The tale he began was never finished, 
for Grant put spurs to his horse and galloped 
away, his great "clay-bank" splashing yellow mud 
at every bound. He found his lines in good or- 
der, except at one point. He heard a discouraged 
private say: "They have come out to fight all 
day, their knapsacks are full of grub." "Is that 
so?" Grant asked quickly. "Bring me one." 
Several were opened and found to contain three 
days' rations. Grant knew that men defending a 
fort do not carry full knapsacks. He sent word 
to Foote, begging him to make a show of force, 



MAN WHO WAS NOT WANTED 323 

even if his boats could not go into action. Then 
he went among the troops, an aide riding by his 
side, and calling as they passed: "Fill your 
cartridge-boxes quickly and get into line. The 
enemy is trying to escape!" 

The soldiers obeyed with a will, and before 
dark the Confederates were once more shut up 
within the fort. That night an odd scene took 
place within its walls. There were three Con- 
federate generals present. The senior, General 
Floyd, had been a treasonable member of Bucha- 
nan's cabinet and had no desire to come within 
reach of United States law. He therefore turned 
over his command to General Pillow. General 
Pillow did the same to the junior general, Buck- 
ner, and the other two escaped by boat with three 
thousand men. Next morning Grant received a 
note from General Buckner, suggesting that com- 
missioners be appointed to arrange terms. 
Grant's answer: "No terms except an uncondi- 
tional and immediate surrender can be accepted. 
I propose to move immediately upon your works," 
made him a national figure within the hour. Ma- 
terially, his victory was the greatest the Union 
Army had yet gained. His telegram announc- 
ing it mentioned twelve thousand to fifteen thou- 
sand prisoners, four thousand horses, and a 
goodly quantity of cannon and commissary 



324 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

stores. The President and Senate made him a 
major-general of volunteers; but the people gave 
him a higher title. They fitted the initials of his 
name to the words of his answer and called him 
''Unconditional Surrender" Grant. 

Had they only known it, he showed an even 
finer spirit in the way he received the surrender. 
Buckner had protested against Grant's reply as 
"unchivalric." One of Grant's young officers 
hoped he would insist on lowered flags and a pic- 
turesque display of defeat as the Confederates 
marched out of Donelson. "Why humiliate a 
brave enemy?" Grant asked sharply, and gave his 
W'est Point school-fellow a greeting that was al- 
most affectionate. Like true Americans they hid 
their emotion under a cloak of banter. Buckner 
assured Grant that if he, and not his seniors, had 
been in command, the Union troops would not 
have succeeded so easily. Grant, who had little 
respect for Floyd or Pillow, replied that if Buck- 
ner had been in command, he would have gone 
about the capture in a different way. The jesting 
hid a large truth. Most of the generals who wore 
the gray, as well as those who wore the blue, had 
been personally known to Grant in his old army 
days, and his knowledge of their characters and 
habits of mind never left him. 

Donelson having fallen, it seemed to him that 



MAN WHO WAS NOT WANTED 325 

the way was open for large advances into the 
South if only the Union armies in the West could 
work together. But there were several com- 
manders, each anxious to carry out his own plans. 
Misunderstandings arose; a disloyal telegraph op- 
erator withheld messages addressed to Grant, and 
this made General Halleck believe that the victor 
of Donelson was deliberately disobeying him. 
In less than three weeks he found himself in dis- 
grace and virtually under arrest, ordered to turn 
over his command to another general, and to re- 
main at Fort Henry. Ten days sufficed to con- 
vince Halleck that he had been hasty, and Grant 
was restored to command; but the injustice hurt, 
and he asked to be relieved. This Halleck re- 
fused, and both men were great enough to let the 
matter drop. 

Grant's next battle came near being a serious 
defeat. When he resumed command, his men 
were camped on both sides of the Tennessee 
River, at Pittsburg Landing, and at Savannah, 
a cluster of houses on the opposite bank, nine 
miles down stream. Grant moved his men to 
Pittsburg Landing, but kept his headquarters at 
Savannah while awaiting the arrival of General 
Buell's force, which had been ordered to join him 
from Kentucky. No steps were taken to intrench 
the camp at Pittsburg Landing, though the enemy 



326 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

was known to be only twenty miles away. Later 
in the war both sides became so expert and so 
cautious that every camp was surrounded by 
earthworks almost before the tents were in place; 
but in April, 1862, they had not learned to do 
this. For two weeks the camp at Pittsburg 
Landing remained unmolested ; then on the morn- 
ing of April 6 it was surprised by General Albert 
Sidney Johnston. Grant was at Savannah, suf- 
fering from a badly injured ankle, which had 
been crushed by the fall of his horse. On hear- 
ing the noise of guns, he ordered steam up on his 
launch, sent his horses aboard, and started. As 
the slow miles of river slipped behind them, his 
staff listened and speculated. The general sat 
silent, a stern expression gathering on his face, 
which his officers came to know as his battle 
look. As the boat neared the landing, he hobbled 
to his horse and painfully swung himself into the 
saddle; then all pain seemed to leave him, and 
almost before the gang-plank was down he was 
galloping toward the heaviest firing. All day he 
rode among the men, calm and vigilant, directing, 
encouraging, doing all a commander could do, and 
more than a commander should, for he exposed 
himself to fire with absolute indifference, paying 
no more attention to the enemy's shot than to so 
many drops of a summer shower. Yet despite 



MAN WHO WAS NOT WANTED 327 

all he could do, he saw his soldiers driven back 
and still farther back. 

General Buell arrived late in the afternoon 
ahead of his army and asked what preparations 
had been made for defeat. The battle look on 
Grant's face deepened. "I have not despaired 
of whipping them yet," he replied. Somebody 
ventured to ask if the prospect did not look 
gloomy. "Not at all," was the answer. "They 
cannot force our lines around those batteries to- 
night; it is too late. Delay counts everything 
with us. To-morrow we shall attack with fresh 
troops and drive them of course." It was one of 
Grant's frankest critics who reported this speech, 
and he added, "From it I date, in my own mind, 
at least, the beginning of any belief in Grant's 
greatness." 

So, though the Union lines had been pushed 
back a mile and a half, though death and suffer- 
ing were everywhere that night, and a fear worse 
than death lurked among the stragglers cowering 
by the river bank, somehow Grant's faith that 
to-morrow the rebels would be driven back "of 
course" communicated itself to the exhausted sol- 
diers who lay down in the mud and rain to wait 
for dawn. By morning Buell's army had come 
up. The Confederates had been disheartened by 
the loss of their beloved General Johnston, killed 



328 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

in a charge on the previous afternoon; though 
they fought stubbornly and well under his suc- 
cessor, General Beauregard, they gave way at 
last, and the battle of Pittsburg Landing or Shi- 
loh, as it is more often called from the church 
around which it raged, ended in a Union victory. 
But it was a victory that filled the land with 
mourning. The losses, thirteen thousand and 
forty-seven on the Union side, and ten thousand, 
six hundred or more on the Confederate, taken 
together were more than four times as great as 
the loss of the Americans during the whole of the 
Mexican War. 

After Shiloh there was no more severe fighting 
in the West for several months, though engage- 
ments took place which for numbers rank with 
the great battles of the Revolution. General 
Halleck took the field in person and began mak- 
ing war according to rule. Overdoing the work 
with pick and shovel that Grant had neglected at 
Pittsburg Landing, he burrowed his way like a 
mole toward Corinth in northern Mississippi 
whither Beauregard had retired. The Confed- 
erates had covered the distance in two days when 
they marched north to surprise Grant. Halleck 
consumed thirty-seven days in his elaborate ap- 
proach, and came at the end to an empty town 
guarded by "Quaker" guns, ferocious-looking 



MAN WHO WAS NOT WANTED 329 

logs of wood mounted and painted to look like 
cannon, the Confederates having withdrawn with 
all their artillery. Halleck hid his mortification 
as best he could. His telegrams announced a 
bloodless victory. The army laughed unpleas- 
antly. The public, not being in possession of all 
the facts, was grateful, as indeed it should have 
been, for the possession of even an empty Corinth 
was a gain which forced the Confederates to 
abandon important points on the Mississippi 
River, notably Fort Pillow and Memphis. 

While General Halleck was personally direct- 
ing operations, Grant, as second in command, 
had little to do and found the position most irk- 
some, disapproving as he did of Halleck's slow 
methods. After General Halleck was called to 
Washington in July, Grant held chief command 
in the West, but was so hampered by the orders 
and the unfinished plans Halleck left behind him 
that it was the middle of October before he could 
seriously undertake the task he had most at heart. 
This was the capture of Vicksburg, perched high 
on its bluff on the eastern bank of the Mississippi. 
He worked for months at this, trying plan after 
plan that to onlookers seemed impractical and 
wild. He had been acclaimed and also much 
criticized for the battle of Shiloh. More than 
one general, intentionally or otherwise, let it be 



330 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

inferred that if every man got his deserts, the 
credit for that victory would fall upon himself 
and not upon Grant. President Lincoln had been 
beset by demands for Grant's removal ; but think- 
ing of McClellan, he shook his head and an- 
swered: "No, I cannot spare Grant. He 
fights." Now, as the weeks slipped by in futile, if 
not aimless, attempts at Vicksburg, the number 
of Grant's detractors increased. Old stories 
against him were whispered anew, and he seemed 
to be sinking back into his old place as the man 
who was not wanted. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE LAND OF THE FREE 

COUNTING battles and skirmishes small and 
great, there were during the Civil War 
nearly three thousand engagements. In addition 
to the main movements, numerous lesser engage- 
ments and expeditions took place east and west, 
in which men did their best and laid down their 
lives, with little result as far as a heart-sick pub- 
lic could see, except to swell the lists of casualties 
printed daily in the newspapers. The Union 
cause seemed to be making no perceptible gain. 
From colonial times on, it had been our Ameri- 
can theory that there should be no compulsory 
military service. Every citizen was supposed to 
be ready and anxious to obey a call to arms. In 
the first flush of enthusiasm after the fall of Sum- 
ter everybody had seemed ready to enlist, but as 
the slow months drove home the conviction that, 
instead of an easy victory, the rebellion would 
have to be crushed out inch by inch, the unlovely 
side of war asserted itself. Men saw it for what 
it is, a chance for martyrdom and daily sacri- 
fice, stripped of all luster and glory. Human na- 

331 



332 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

ture recoiled at the uselessness and squalor of it 
all, and the number of recruits grew visibly less. 
It was not that men were less devoted to the 
Union, but that the care-free and enthusiastic had 
already offered themselves, and that the time was 
now at hand for the less spontaneous to come 
forward. It is always so. • The same thing hap- 
pened in the first weeks and dreary after days of 
the Revolution, and is likely to happen as long as 
human nature remains no worse and no better 
than it is. One hundred and fifty years of trust- 
ing to voluntary enlistments in America have 
proved that while in the end it comes out right, 
strife is prolonged and the task made infinitely 
harder by this unavoidable period of dejection. 
It is, therefore, well that in the present hour of 
need a law has made military service as much a 
part of duty as taxation, with no more stigma at- 
taching to a summons to the colors than to the 
call of the tax collector, whose bill is paid, as a 
matter of course, "for value received." 

At the time of the Civil War the country was 
not yet ready for such a law. Before the end of 
the struggle, however, both sides came to con- 
scription. The Confederates were forced to it 
in 1862, the Federal Government a year later. 
By 1862 the long series of Union losses had al- 
ready caused great depression in the North, not 



THE LAND OF THE FREE 333 

only in men's minds, but in that infallible busi- 
ness barometer, the stock market. Something 
had to be done; there was one vast source of 
rebel strength against which no move had yet 
been made, — the institution of slavery, which had 
brought on the war and was present, either in 
brown human flesh or in the thoughts of men, in 
every army camp, North and South. Slave labor 
was useful to the Confederates in a thousand 
ways; for building forts, for hauling supplies, for 
raising food. On the Northern side one of the 
first results of the war had been to give oppor- 
tunity to enterprising and discontented slaves to 
escape into Union camps, sometimes in embar- 
rassing numbers. Many of them could render 
valuable service as guides or cooks or teamsters ; 
but their presence was sure to bring up trouble- 
some questions. 

General orders stated, "We are neither ne- 
gro stealers nor negro catchers." This could 
be interpreted to justify either course, and some 
army commanders welcomed the black people 
into their camps; others tried to exclude them. 
Shortly after General Butler took command at 
Fortress Monroe in the spring of 1861, the agent 
of a rebel master came to him and, invoking the 
fugitive slave law, demanded the return of three 
negroes. The general answered that they would 



334 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

be given up when their master returned and 
took the oath of allegiance to the United States ; 
but that as long as he asserted Virginia to be a 
foreign country he had no right to claim that 
laws of the United States were in force there. 
Newspaper accounts of this decision pointed out 
that since negroes were of value in building Con- 
federate fortifications, they were undoubtedly 
"contraband of war," and no more to be given 
up than cannon or ammunition. Both the phrase 
and the logic appealed to popular fancy, and "con- 
trabands," as a name for such colored people, 
sprang quickly into use. But while it was pic- 
turesque and convincing, it did not solve the prob- 
lem. General Butler soon reported that he had 
nine hundred black men, women, and children of 
all ages on his hands. Were they still slaves or 
had they become free? Could negroes whose 
masters had run away and left them be considered 
fugitive slaves? It was not only a knotty legal 
problem; upon the proper solution of this ques- 
tion of slave property might depend the fate of 
four border slave States, Maryland, West Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, which up to that 
time had not joined the Confederacy. 

The administration was not left without ad- 
vice: radicals besought the President to free all 
the black people at once, while those of contrary 



THE LAND OF THE FREE 335 

views declared that it was unjust to allow a single 
slave in a Union camp. When it was found that 
Mr. Lincoln took no immediate action, his critics 
taunted him with not having the courage of his 
antislavery convictions. Others said that he was 
letting his dislike of slavery bring ruin upon the 
country. 

In his inaugural address he had taken the 
ground that the Southern States could not secede, 
and were therefore still in the Union. He had 
sworn to "preserve, protect, and defend" the laws 
of the United States. This meant all the laws, 
including those about slavery. His published 
speeches left no doubt of his personal belief that 
slavery was a great evil ; but it was lawful in cer- 
tain parts of the country, and he felt that be had 
no right to interfere with it in those sections just 
because he did not like it himself. All the agita- 
tion leading up to the Civil War had been about 
allowing slavery in new territory. To that he 
was unalterably opposed; but never, up to the time 
he became President nor for months afterward, 
did he advocate immediate emancipation. He 
recognized that such a course would work hard- 
ship to masters and slaves alike. His own belief 
was that a system of gradual emancipation, with 
pay to owners to compensate them for the loss of 
their property, and training for the slaves to fit 



336 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

them for freedom, would be best for all. While 
a member of Congress, he had introduced a bill 
proposing this course for the slaves in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia; after he became President he 
made more than one effort to persuade the border 
slave States that remained in the Union to agree 
to the plan. When objections were made on ac- 
count of the cost, he pointed out how little it would 
cost compared with the blood and treasure that 
were being consumed in war. 

As long as possible he continued to treat slav- 
ery as a civil and not as a military problem, and 
just so long he refused to have existing laws dis- 
turbed. Twice during the early part of the war 
military commanders issued orders freeing the 
slaves in the districts over which they had con- 
trol, and both times he refused to allow these or- 
ders to stand. The first instance was in August, 
1861, when General John C. Fremont, the gallant 
and adventurous, if not always wise, officer who 
had won California in 1846, was commanding in 
Missouri. Finding himself less successful than 
he had been in the picturesque experiences of his 
lieutenant days, he issued a proclamation estab- 
lishing martial law throughout Missouri and an- 
nouncing that "the property, real or personal, of 
all persons in the State of Missouri who shall 
take up arms against the United States or who 



THE LAND OF THE FREE £37 

shall be directly proven to have taken an active 
part with their enemies in the field, is declared 
to be confiscated to the public use; and their 
slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared free 
men." 

This proclamation was issued without the 
knowledge of the President, at a time when there 
was no military necessity for such an act. In a 
kind letter Mr. Lincoln asked General Fremont to 
modify it as of his own accord; and when Fre- 
mont refused to do this, he publicly ordered him 
to make the change. The other instance oc- 
curred in the following May. General David 
Hunter, a most gallant and loyal officer, com- 
manding the Department of the South, issued a 
military order that read: "Slavery and martial 
law in a free country are altogether incompatible; 
the persons in these three States, — Georgia, Flor- 
ida, and South Carolina, — heretofore held as 
slaves, are therefore declared forever free." 
News of this order reached Washington by slow 
ocean mails, and Mr. Lincoln's first comment was 
emphatic. "No commanding general shall do 
such a thing upon my responsibility, without con- 
sulting me." He published a proclamation de- 
claring General Hunter's order void, and added ; 

I further make known that, whether it be competent 
for me as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, to 



338 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

declare the slaves of any State or States free, and 
whether, at any time, in any case, it shall have become a 
necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the govern- 
ment to exercise such supposed power, are questions 
which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and 
which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of 
commanders in the field. These are totally different 
questions from those of police regulations in armies and 
camps. 

"His responsibility" was the key-note in all 
these decisions. .The sense of it never left him 
day or night; and as the weeks went on in con- 
tinued gloom, it pressed upon him very heavily, 
carving deep lines upon his face. Those whose 
duty took them past him in moments when he sat 
alone said that he appeared unaware of physical 
things, and that his eyes "looked inward," as 
"Washington's used to do, absorbed with the tre- 
mendous questions he alone must decide. In 
the previous December he had forbidden the sec- 
retary of war. even to make public announcement 
that the Government might at some future time 
find it necessary to arm slaves and employ them 
as soldiers; but in the course of the summer of 
1862 he became convinced that the treatment of 
this great question of slavery had ceased to be a 
matter for civil government. 

The time and manner in which he came to his 
great decision can. best be told in his own words, 



THE LAND OF THE FREE 339 

often quoted, as they were taken down by his ar- 
tist friend, Frank B. Carpenter, while the latter 
was painting his picture of the signing of the 
Emancipation Proclamation. 

"It had got to be," said Mr. Lincoln, "midsummer, 
1862. 1 Things had gone on from bad to worse, until I 
felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan 
of operations we had been pursuing; that we had about 
played our last card, and must change our tactics, or lose 
the game. I now determined upon the adoption of the 
emancipation policy; and, without consultation with, or 
the knowledge of, the Cabinet, I prepared the original 
draft of the proclamation, and after much anxious 
thought, called a Cabinet meeting upon the subject. . . . 
I said to the Cabinet that I had resolved upon this step, 
and had not called them together to ask their advice, but 
to lay the subject-matter of a proclamation before them, 
suggestions as to which would be in order after they had 
heard it read." 

It was on the twenty-second of July that the 
President read them the draft of this first procla- 
mation. It announced that at the next meeting 
of Congress he would again offer compensated 
emancipation to such States as chose to accept it, 
and went on to order, by virtue of his authority 
as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy 
of the United States, that the slaves in all those 

1 It will be remembered tbat this was the date of the end of 
McClellan's Peninsular Campaign. 



34Q THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

parts of the country that were still in rebellion 
on the first day of January, 1863, should "then, 
thenceforward and forever" be free. 

Two of the seven gentlemen who composed the 
President's cabinet had received a hint of what 
was coming. To the rest it was a veritable bomb- 
shell. Different opinions were expressed, but 
the President had already made up his mind that 
the proclamation must be issued. Secretary Sew- 
ard approved, but suggested that it would be bet- 
ter to wait until after a Union victory. If issued 
now, after a series of Union disasters, the coun- 
try and Europe might think it a cry of despair. 

Mr. Lincoln continued: "The wisdom of the view of 
the Secretary of State struck me with very great force. 
It was an aspect of the case that, in all my thought upon 
the subject, I had entirely overlooked. The result was 
that I put the draft of the proclamation aside, as you do 
your sketch for a picture, waiting for a victory." 

Instead of victory, came the second defeat at 
Bull Run, after which the President was assailed 
with much more gratuitous advice. His mind 
was made up, but it did not suit his purpose that 
this should become known ; so during this season 
of waiting he was forced to reply in a way to 
restrain the impatience of both sides. "What 
would you do in my position?" he asked a critic 
from Louisiana. "Would you drop the war 



THE LAND OF THE FREE 341 

where it is ? Or would you prosecute it in future 
with elder-stalk squirts charged with rosewater?" 
The "New York Tribune" published a long open 
letter accusing Mr. Lincoln and many officers 
of the army of neglect of duty through a kindly 
feeling for slavery. ,The President replied to 
this with great dignity in an open letter addressed 
to the editor. 

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing," as you say, I 
have not meant to leave any one in doubt. . . . My para- 
mount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and 
is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save 
the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it ; and 
if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; 
and if 1 could save it by freeing some and leaving others 
alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and 
the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save 
the Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do 
not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do 
less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the 
cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing 
more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors 
when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so 
fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here 
stated my purpose according to my view of official duty ; 
and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed per- 
sonal wish that all men everywhere could be free. 



After General Pope's defeat a company of min- 
isters went from Chicago to Washington ex- 
pressly to urge Mr. Lincoln to free the slaves at 



342 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

once. His answer, while perfectly courteous, 
showed the strain under which he was living. "I 
am approached with the most opposite opinions 
and advice, and that by religious men, who are 
equally certain that they represent the Divine 
will. ... I hope it will not be irreverent for me 
to say that if it is probable that God would reveal 
His will to others on a point so connected with 
my duty, it might be supposed He would reveal 
it directly to me. . . . What good would a proc- 
lamation of emancipation from me do, especially 
as we are now situated? I do not want to issue 
a document that the whole world will see must 
necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull 
against the comet. . . . Do not misunderstand 
me. ... I have not decided against a proclama- 
tion of liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter 
under advisement. And I can assure you that 
the subject is on my mind, by day and night more 
than any other. Whatever shall appear to be 
God's will, I will do." 

Then the battle of Antietam was fought. It 
was not a brilliant victory, considering McClel- 
lan's wonderful chance; but a few days proved 
that it could reasonably be claimed as a Union 
success. President Lincoln called the cabinet to- 
gether and told them that the time had at last ar- 
rived to issue the proclamation. He wished it 



THE LAND OF THE FREE 343 

was a better time, but he had determined to take 
the step as soon as Lee's army should be driven 
out of Pennsylvania. "I said nothing to any 
one, but I made the promise to myself," he said, 
then, hesitating a little, added, "and to my Maker. 
The Rebel army is now driven out, and I am going 
to fulfil that promise. ... I must do the best I 
can, and bear the responsibility of taking the 
course which I feel I ought to take." 

It was on the twenty-second of September that 
this preliminary proclamation was issued, giving 
notice to the public of what he meant to do ; and on 
January 1, 1863, one hundred days later, the final 
proclamation was signed and went into immediate 
effect. This also was a purely military decree. 
It exempted certain small portions of the South 
not at that time in rebellion; but the slaves in 
these soon became free by process of law. . 

It was on the afternoon of New Year's day, 
without prearranged ceremony of any kind, in 
the presence of about a dozen persons met in his 
office, that Abraham Lincoln wrote his name at 
the bottom of the great edict of freedom that lib- 
erated four million human beings and made this 
country of ours in truth what it had long been in 
theory, the land of the free. 

Of course the South cried out in horror. Jef- 
ferson Davis sent a message to the Confederate 



344 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Congress in which he called Lincoln's act "the 
most execrable measure recorded in the history 
of guilty man." The Confederate Senate talked 
of raising the black flag. It was charged that 
emancipation had been planned with the deliber- 
ate purpose of inciting the slaves to rise up and 
kill their masters; but the one massacre of the 
war was on the other side of the ledger, the trag- 
edy at Fort Pillow where several hundred negro 
soldiers lost their lives. 

Indeed, the devotion of these lowly and not al- 
ways well-treated black people to their white own- 
ers is one before which the world may well bow 
in humble admiration. They were ignorant, and 
often as unwise as children; but they held many 
a master's home together after the stress of war 
had brought it to poverty and sorrow; and the 
suffering of the Southern whites, both during and 
after the war, would have been infinitely greater 
without their unselfish, faithful service. 

They did their duty also by the Government 
that freed them. By the time emancipation was 
a year old nearly fifty thousand of them were 
serving in the Union ranks. But it was far from 
home that the Emancipation Proclamation had 
its greatest immediate effect. It carried convic- 
tion to Europe that the Federal Government was 
indeed waging a war for the sake of principle. 



CHAPTER XXV 

A MOMENTOUS FOURTH OF JULY 

AS the Mississippi flows through the Southern 
States toward the Gulf it winds down its 
great valley cutting at every time of freshet new 
channels for itself in the soft rich earth. The 
abandoned channels form a tangle of bayous and 
swampy islands, muddy water and soggy ground 
clogged with creeping vines, through which 
troops could no more march than through quick- 
sand. Occasionally the river leaves the center 
of this region, "where the water needs straining 
and the land draining to make either properly 
wet or dry," to sweep close to bluffs at its eastern 
edge. Vicksburg is on such a bluff, two hundred 
feet above the river, which curves here in such a 
way that gunboats running its batteries had to 
pass twice under its fire, their own guns mean- 
while being as powerless to inflict damage upon 
the works above them as though it were a city in 
the clouds. 

The Western armies had the assistance of two 
fleets of gunboats, the one which helped Grant 
at Fort Henry, and another under Admiral Far- 

345 



346 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

ragut, approaching from the south. With the 
help of the latter New Orleans was captured late 
in April, 1862; and by autumn the two fleets, 
working together "like two shears of the scis- 
sors," in concert with the Union armies, had suc- 
ceeded in gaining possession of all except about 
two hundred miles, the stretch from Vicksburg 
south to Port Hudson. But this was a most im- 
portant section, guarding the entrance to the Red 
River, a stream to the west that gave access to 
a rich country from which the Confederates 
could draw food and recruits and cotton as long 
as Vicksburg held out. 

Twice, after the fall of New Orleans, Admiral 
Farragut made a dash north past the batteries of 
Vicksburg, very much as the British admiral ran 
the batteries of Quebec during the French and In- 
dian War; but General Halleck refused to send 
troops to cooperate with him, thinking he needed 
every man for his mole-like approach upon Cor- 
inth. At that time the defenses of Vicksburg 
were not finished, and it might have been cap- 
tured by a comparatively small force; but the 
Confederates continued to work upon them until 
it was well worthy to be called the Gibraltar of 
the West. 

Grant watched all the movements against this 
important point with deep interest and, as soon 



A MOMENTOUS FOURTH OF JULY 347 

as he was free to do so, began his own efforts to 
reach it. It was impossible to attack it from the 
west, because the country stretched away for 
miles, only a few inches above the water-level, a 
mass of swampy islands without one spot firm 
enough for the erection of heavy batteries. Late 
in 1862 he tried to approach from the direction 
of Jackson, Mississippi, while General Sherman 
came from Memphis. They hoped to unite their 
forces, but were unsuccessful, and Grant lost his 
supplies and had to forage upon the country as 
best he could for a fortnight before getting in 
touch again with regular rations. In the end 
this proved a most valuable experience, but at the 
time it seemed a real disaster. 

Between January and April, 1863, he tried a 
series of experiments that appeared rash indeed, 
though Admiral Porter, now in command of the 
northern fleet of gunboats, gave him cheerful and 
hearty support. First, Grant tried to cut a chan- 
nel across the tongue of land formed by the bend 
of the river at Vicksburg, so that the gunboats 
could slip by out of range of its batteries. Then 
he attempted to force boats up the swampy Ya- 
zoo, which enters the Mississippi a few miles 
above Vicksburg, hoping to find a landing-place 
from which his soldiers could march upon the 
rear of the town through country that was rough 



348 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

and full of ravines, but at least was solid under 
foot. A third experiment was to search for a 
way into the Yazoo much farther north and come 
down that stream to a landing instead of sailing 
up it. Another was to cut a canal into Lake 
Providence, seventy miles above Vicksburg, find 
some practicable route through two hundred miles 
of bayou, join General Banks and Admiral Far- 
ragut, who were endeavoring to capture Port 
Hudson, and, after that was accomplished, to 
move north with the combined force. 

All these schemes involved vast labor. Nat- 
ural conditions made them hard enough, and a 
vigilant enemy added immensely to the difficulty. 
Sharp-shooters lurked behind trees. Confeder- 
ate batteries opened at unexpected places. 
Squads of slaves were driven through the swamps 
at the point of the bayonet to fell trees in front 
and rear of the slow-moving Union gunboats; 
and many expeditions by night and by day were 
necessary to rescue the fleet. Sometimes the sol- 
diers lighted their way through the cane-brakes 
with candles and torches. Life in the swamps 
bred disease until the graves dug fur men who 
died in this way became more numerous than for 
those killed by bullets. It was a nightmare of 
war. Infantry splashed through water; boats 
uprooted trees; everything seemed distorted and 



A MOMENTOUS FOURTH OF JULY 349 

inverted; everything happened in an unreal, un- 
expected, unsuccessful way. Grant's critics be- 
came very busy. 

In April he entered upon another attempt, 
wilder still if possible. He had wanted all win- 
ter to try it, but it was necessary to wait for the 
hardening roads of Spring. Admiral Porter, 
whose help was essential, agreed heartily and set 
about preparations without loss of time; but 
Grant's officers were aghast. The plan was for 
Porter to divide his fleet, run past the Vicksburg 
batteries with fifteen or twenty boats, and take 
them sixty miles or more down-stream. Grant 
would meet him at that point with thirty-five 
thousand men after having marched them seventy 
miles by roundabout ways through a tangle of 
bayous on the west bank of the Mississippi. Por- 
ter was to ferry them across the stream, after 
which this force of infantry was to start north 
again, fighting whenever necessary and living 
entirely off the enemy's country as it had learned 
to do in the disaster of the previous fall. Grant's 
generals protested. Pie listened to all they had 
to say, the stubborn look deepening on his face. 
When they were quite through, he remarked, "I 
am of the same opinion," and gave orders that 
the movement be carried out. He assumed no 
light responsibility, for failure meant not only 



350 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

the loss of his army ; it meant very likely the loss 
of the Union cause. 

In preparation Porter's boats were piled high 
with cotton and grain to protect their boilers ; and 
when the time came, men were stationed below 
to stop up with cotton as best they could the holes 
that might be shot through their hulls. It was 
about ten o'clock on the night of April 16 that the 
admiral's Hag-ship swung into the channel from 
behind a sheltering screen of trees where these 
preparations had been made, the others following 
one after the other at intervals of a few minutes. 
A watchful Confederate lookout gave the alarm. 
Battery after battery opened upon them. Bon- 
fires were kindled, and frame houses on the river 
bank were given to the flames for the light their 
destruction would fling upon the current. In this 
carnival of flame and noise the Union boats 
slipped past fourteen miles of rebel batteries with- 
out the loss of a single life; though each boat was 
hit many times. 

At the appointed place the army was met and 
ferried across the river. Then Grant started 
north without baggage and without food, his am- 
munition being carried in a motley procession of 
country vehicles requisitioned in the neighbor- 
hood. In fact his expedition traveled very much 
as the patriot armies had marched during the 



A MOMENTOUS FOURTH OF JULY 351 

Revolution, commander and privates living in a 
democracy of privation. It is stated that the gen- 
eral's personal luggage vvas reduced to the mini- 
mum of a tooth-brush. He ate where he could 
and slept where night found him. His men saw 
him riding among them on his borrowed horse, 
spattered with mud, silent, determined, quietly 
confident. They spoke of him among themselves 
as the "old man," but the tone in which they said 
it showed that it was no title of disrespect. 

Grant's last message to General Halleck as he 
plunged into the enemy's country had been, "You 
may not hear from me for several days." Dur- 
ing the first twenty days of May he marched one 
hundred and eighty miles and fought five success- 
ful battles, capturing nearly ninety guns and over 
six thousand prisoners, a success that caused Gen- 
eral Pemberton to withdraw his army within the 
defenses of Vicksburg. This was indeed news 
to a country hungering for victory. Grant's sol- 
diers were eager to assault at once, and confident 
they could take the place within an hour. Learn- 
ing that Confederate reinforcements were on the 
way, Grant consented ; but the next news to reach 
the country was that there had been two assaults, 
and that both had failed. Union soldiers had 
scrambled through cane-brakes and rugged ra- 
vines to the very foot of the defenses. At one 



352 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

point a Union flag had been planted upon the 
parapet ; but it was not allowed to stay there, and 
the daring soldiers had been obliged to lie close 
under the enemy's walls until darkness fell and 
they could be rescued. The loss of life had been 
very great, and not a single redoubt was taken. 
So it proved not a victory, but the beginning of 
a long siege. General remberton declared that 
he would not give up until every animal and every 
grain of corn had been eaten and every man had 
perished in the defenses. The non-combatants 
showed the same spirit. They burrowed into the 
clay bluffs to make caves where the women and 
children would be safe from exploding shells, 
furnished these as best they could from their 
abandoned dwellings, and settled down to a life of 
valiant discomfort. The siege went on for six 
weeks. Day by day the Union trenches pressed 
nearer. Day by day supplies in Vicksburg dwin- 
dled, and the thousand things needed to keep a 
town in comfort grew less. By the first of July 
the two picket-lines were so close that chaffing 
conversations took place. "When are you com- 
ing to town?" the Confederates would ask, and 
the others would answer that they meant to cele- 
brate the Fourth of July there, or retorted that 
their antagonists were already prisoners and were 
being made to feed themselves. 



A MOMENTOUS FOURTH OF JULY 353 

It was meager fare. Almost the last grain of 
corn had been eaten and the last animal had given 
up its life, when Pemberton's flag of truce ap- 
peared. He and Grant were old acquaintances 
of the Mexican War. They met between the 
lines, Grant showing no emotion, whatever he 
may have felt, Pemberton laboring under evident 
excitement. Grant had already made it known 
that unconditional surrender would be required, 
but had added that troops as brave as the de- 
fenders of Vicksburg must always command re- 
spect and be treated as became prisoners of war. 
After an awkward silence Pemberton broke out 
in protest that he had not been allowed terms and 
conditions. It was not a pleasant conference. 
Grant remained unmoved, the Confederates dis- 
satisfied, the other Union officers distressed. Af- 
ter returning to his own camp, Grant wrote out 
the terms he was willing to accord, and they were 
so liberal that his subordinates protested. He 
paid no more heed to the protests than he had 
paid to remonstrances against the plan that had 
led to the reduction of the city. 

At ten o'clock on the morning of the national 
holiday the thirty-one thousand defenders of 
Vicksburg marched out from their sally posts, 
stacked their arms, and marched back into Vicks- 
burg, prisoners of war. Not a cheer went up 



354 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

from the Union ranks, for these men had been 
brothers and friends before they became ene- 
mies ; and they were pinched and thin to the verge 
of starvation. The soldiers fraternized in- 
stantly, the northerners sharing with their late 
antagonists the contents of their well filled haver- 
sacks; while the Union commander, seeing how 
the people were living in their caves and that 
their food was indeed exhausted, issued at once 
ten days' rations. 

The fall of Vicksburg opened the Mississippi 
River, for Port Hudson, the one point still held 
by the Confederates, surrendered when it heard 
the cheers with which General Banks's soldiers 
greeted the news. The country rang again with 
Grant's praises, as it had rung after Donelson, 
and he was quickly made a major-general in the 
regular army, his previous rank having been in 
the volunteer service. He accepted the praise as 
he had taken the blame, with irritating calm; and 
when an acquaintance tried to compliment him 
on his "brilliant strategy" and "grand logistics," 
answered, with a simplicity that pricked the fine 
bubbles of language, that he had "just pounded 
away until he pounded the place down." 

July 4, 1863, proved to be the turning-point of 
the war, for victory crowned it in the East also. 
The Army of the Potomac had fared badly since 



A MOMENTOUS FOURTH OF JULY 355 

the retirement of General McClellan. Com- 
mander after commander and month after month 
passed without bringing it success. The chief 
distinction of General Burnside, who followed 
McClellan, is that he lost the cruelly destructive 
battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1S62. 
The Confederates had ample time to fortify the 
heights above the town on the Rappahannock, and 
did it so thoroughly that when General Burnside 
attempted to throw a pontoon bridge across the 
river and attack in front, "the whole declivity 
was one bristling mass of cannon and muskets, 
served by stout-hearted soldiers waiting silently 
in the grimmest joy a soldier knows, — that of see- 
ing his enemy approach him and in his power." 

General Couch, who took part in the battle, de- 
scribed what he saw when he mounted to the top 
of the court-house for a moment's view of the 
field. 

Howard, who was with me, says I exclaimed, "Oh, 
great God ! See how our men, our poor men, are fall- 
ing !" I remember that the whole plain was covered with 
men prostrate and dropping, the live men running here 
and there, and in front closing upon each other and on 
the wounded coming back. ... I had never seen righting 
like that; nothing approaching the terrible uproar and 
destruction. There was no cheering on the part of the 
men, but a stubborn determination. ... As they charged, 
the artillery fire would break their formation and they 



356 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

would get mixed ; then they would close up, go forward, 
receive the withering infantry fire, and those who were 
able would run to the houses and fight as best they could ; 
and the next brigade coming up in succession would do 
its duty and melt like snow coming down on warm earth. 

The weather was so bitterly cold that dead 
bodies stiffened as they fell, and were rolled for- 
ward to make protection for the living. The bat- 
tle lasted a whole day, until the whole right wing 
of the Union Army was shattered. General 
Burnside spent the following night in visiting 
his various commands, a cheerless promenade. 
With a stubbornness akin to desperation, he 
wished to renew the attack in the morning and to 
lead it in person, but he was dissuaded, and retired 
on the night of the fifteenth. He assumed all 
blame for the disaster, in very manly words; but 
that could not make good the losses. 

The year 1863 was to be one of very heavy 
fighting for the Army of the Potomac, and its 
woes began in January with the famous "mud 
march" by which Burnside tried to correct his 
mistake at Fredericksburg. Many of his officers 
disapproved of his plan for a forward movement 
at this time; but he persisted, and pressed on until 
a continuous cold, drizzling rain had turned the 
roads into seas of glue. Everything on wheels 
sank into the bottomless ooze. It required 



A MOMENTOUS FOURTH OF JULY 357 

twenty horses to start a single caisson; hun- 
dreds of the poor beasts literally died in harness. 
As for the soldiers, one private wrote feelingly 
that "Mud took all the military valor out of a 
man." This was not true; it required more 
than mud to quench valor in the Army of the 
Potomac. But at last even Burnside saw that 
the march must be given up, and men and horses 
struggled and floundered back to camp. Some 
of the division commanders regarded the deluge 
as heaven-sent, and at least one thought Burnside 
was losing his mind. 

After this it was evident that the Army of the 
Potomac must have another commander. The 
President chose "Fighting Joe" Hooker, who had 
been free in his criticism of his superior, General 
Burnside, and, indeed, had not hesitated to say 
wherein he disapproved of the management of 
the whole war. In the kindest letter ever writ- 
ten by the ruler of a great nation to the com- 
mander of its chief army, Mr. Lincoln told him 
just why he had promoted him and warned him 
of dangers ahead. He wrote: 

1 have placed you at the head of the Army of the Po- 
tomac. Of course I have done this upon what appear 
to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best 
for you to know that there are some things in regard to 
which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you 



358 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

to be a brave and skilful soldier, which of course I like. 
I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, 
in which you are right. You have confidence in your- 
self, which is a valuable if not an indispensable quality. 
You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does 
good rather than harm ; but I think that during General 
Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel 
of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you 
could, in which you did a great wrong to the country and 
to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I 
have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently 
saying that both the army and the government needed a 
dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of 
it, that I have given you the command. Only those 
generals who gain success can set up dictators. What I 
now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the 
dictatorship. The government will support you to the 
utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than 
it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear 
that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the 
army, of criticising their commander and withholding 
confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall 
assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you 
nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good 
out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it ; and now 
beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with en- 
ergy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us 
victories. 

"He talks to me like a father," said Hooker. 
"I shall not answer his letter until I have won him 
a victory." 

General Hooker found the right word. Lin- 



A MOMENTOUS FOURTH OF JULY 359 

coin had a father's tenderness for his great mili- 
tary family. It was not only for generals; his 
sympathy reached down through the ranks to the 
last private. The hours he spent every week 
going laboriously over details of army adminis- 
tration, such as sentences of court martials for 
desertion, which he quaintly called his "leg- 
cases," testify how deeply he felt for the men in 
the ranks and how anxious he was that not one 
of them should be unjustly treated. Washing- 
ton, the military chief, had been a severe, but ap- 
preciative taskmaster. Lincoln, the civilian chief 
of one of the largest armies of modern times, was 
anything but severe in his dealings with men and 
officers. Indeed, he was so lenient as to be the 
despair of those who felt discipline to be all-im- 
portant. He admitted that they were right in 
theory, but followed his instinct, which bade him 
temper justice with much mercy. In another 
branch of the theory of war this citizen-com- 
mander developed great skill as time went on. 
Almost every campaign and forward movement 
that he advocated proved by experiment to be a 
wise one. His acutely logical mind did not play 
him false when turned upon military problems, 
while that same logic not unfrequently caused 
him to detect flaws in plans submitted by men 
trained all their lives along military lines. 



360 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

About the middle of April, General Hooker 
felt that he was ready to begin his forward move- 
ment; but he did so only to meet defeat at 
Chancellorsville in the first days of May. He 
started with every prospect of success, crossed 
the Rappahannock and gained a position from 
which to attack the rear of Lee's army ; and then, 
for some cause never satisfactorily explained, 
his energy gave place to an indecision strangely 
at variance with his usual nature. The Confed- 
erates discovered that his right wing was unpro- 
tected. An aide of General Lee's, sleeping with 
his saddle for a pillow, woke in the chill hour be- 
fore dawn on May second to see two men in 
earnest conversation as they bent over a little 
fire of twigs. It was a conference between Gen- 
eral Lee and Stonewall Jackson. With the first 
rays of the sun, Jackson was leading a third of 
Lee's army to outflank and drive in that unpro- 
tected right wing. All day they marched, and 
in the evening, as the men of General Howard's 
division of the Army of the Potomac lounged at 
their ease, waiting for supper, they were startled 
by a strange invasion. Rabbits and birds and 
even deer came leaping and flying toward them 
through the underbrush, followed by their own 
comrades driven in from picket duty; and after 
them Stonewall Jackson's corps, three deep. 




GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 

From a photograph by M. Miley & Son taken in 1867 
Half-tone plate engraved by H. Davidson 



A MOMENTOUS FOURTH OF JULY 361 

Before Hooker could determine what to do, the 
division so rudely disturbed was pressing panic- 
stricken upon his center, with the Confederates 
in close pursuit. Twilight fell upon a scene of 
utmost confusion. A cavalry charge, the quick 
shifting and wheeling into place of twenty-two 
guns from various batteries, and spirited work 
with bayonets after it had grown so dark that 
men were guided by the sound of firing and the 
flash of their comrades' guns, brought disaster 
in turn upon the Confederates. It was in the 
confusion of this twilight firing that Stonewall 
Jackson fell, mortally wounded by his own men 
as he rode, praying and exhorting, far ahead of 
his battle line. 

By morning the damage done to the right wing 
of the Army of the Potomac had been almost re- 
paired; but early on this day General Hooker 
met with an accident that rendered him uncon- 
scious for a time and deprived the army of his 
direction for several hours. The outcome was 
that the Union Army withdrew north of the Rap- 
pahannock and the prestige of another victory 
fell to Lee. 

Lee's success inspired the highest hopes in the 
Confederacy, but more than ambition prompted 
him to continue his invasion of the North. The 
pinch of want was already being felt in the South. 







62 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 



It had been hinted, whether officially or not, that 
he might look for rations in Pennsylvania. He 
crossed the Potomac above Harper's Ferry and 
moved through Maryland into Pennsylvania, 
Hooker following "on the inside track," as Mr. 
Lincoln expressed it, to keep his army between 
Lee and Washington. But Hooker and Halleck, 
the general-in-chief, were not on good terms, 
and at this point their quarrel grew so acute that 
Hooker asked to be relieved. General George G. 
Meade was appointed to succeed him, while the 
troops continued their march with unbroken step. 

By the time they reached the Pennsylvania 
line, the Confederates were threatening Har- 
risburg, spreading terror far and wide. Impro- 
vised forces gathered upon the banks of the Sus- 
quehanna; and Lee, finding that stream too well 
guarded, turned east. Meade was marching 
north, and this brought the two armies together 
at the town of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, where 
on the first, second, and third of July the most 
decisive battle of the war was fought. 

On the first day the Union troops made a stub- 
born effort to hold the town, but the Confederates 
drove them out of it. Half a mile to the south, 
however, the Union regiments established them- 
selves on Cemetery Ridge and Hill. Several 
rocky elevations and a crest of boulders at its 



A MOMENTOUS FOURTH OF JULY 363 

northern end made this a natural fortress, and 
skilful intrenching soon rendered it nearly im- 
pregnable. Across a wide valley to the west lay 
Seminary Ridge, of which the Confederates as 
quickly took possession. The next morning both 
commanding generals were early in the field. 
Lee ordered attacks on the extreme right and the 
extreme left of the Union position ; and the end of 
that day found him partly successful on the right, 
though completely repulsed on the left. 

At dawn of the third day General Meade was 
the aggressor and retook the ground lost the day 
before. Then an ominous hush of preparation 
fell upon the battle-field, to be broken at noon by 
a furious cannonade begun by rebel guns. For 
an hour the ground shook and echoed, at the end 
of which the Union batteries ceased their answer 
in order to cool and be ready for the assault that 
was sure to follow. After a period of painful ex- 
pectancy the flower of the Confederate infantry, 
seventeen thousand strong, moved out across the 
valley to be met and almost mowed down by Un- 
ion grapeshot and the aim of Union riflemen from 
behind their rocks and intrenchments. The ad- 
vancing line wavered, pressed on, wavered again, 
and finally disappeared in the destructive fire. A 
few Confederate battle-flags managed to reach 
the crest of Cemetery Ridge, but only to fall 



364 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

there; and in that vanishing line the South's 
dream of capturing Philadelphia and dictating 
peace in Independence Hall disappeared forever. 

Trees still stand as living witnesses to the 
fury of the fight, for they show the scars of battle 
after the healing of fifty summers has passed over 
them. Spots are still pointed out where the dead 
lay in heaps, as they lay in the Alamo; and a 
monument marks an exposed position where a 
gun had three cannoneers shot down in quick suc- 
cession before a fourth stepped forward and fired 
the charge. Not all who fought that day were 
enrolled in the army. Tales are current upon the 
battle-field even yet of old John Burns, a neigh- 
borhood farmer past his threescore years and ten, 
a veteran of early wars, who appeared near a 
skirmish line in his old blue swallowtail coat with 
brass buttons, his rifle on his arm. The soldiers 
laughed ; then, finding that he had really come to 
fight, pressed a cartridge-box upon him. He 
slapped his pantaloons' pocket and answered, "I 
can get my hand in here quicker than into a box ; 
I ain't used to them new-fangled contraptions," 
and, taking his place behind a tree, fired until 
thrice wounded. 

The losses of Gettysburg speak for themselves. 
Over three thousand were killed, fourteen thou- 



A MOMENTOUS FOURTH OF JULY 365 

sand wounded, and five thousand captured or 
missing- on the Union side; there were twenty-six 
hundred killed, twelve thousand wounded, and 
five thousand missing of the Confederates. Yet 
it is doubtful whether either general realized at 
the time all that this battle meant of victory and 
defeat. Meade was surprised next morning to 
find that the Confederate Army was hurrying 
away toward the Potomac. Unable to cross be- 
cause the river was swollen by heavy rains, Lee 
was detained upon its banks for a full week. 
This gave Meade ample time to pursue, and the 
end of the war seemed in sight. But he let the 
golden opportunity pass, though, as Mr. Lincoln 
said in sorrow, the entire Confederate Army had 
been within his easy grasp. On the night of 
July 13, Lee and his men got safely across the 
river; Meade followed, but never did he regain 
the chance he lost while the swollen waters held 
his opponent in a trap. Repeated minor engage- 
ments took place; but the weeks lengthened into 
months, and when cold weather again drove the 
opposing armies into winter quarters, they con- 
fronted each other not far south of where they 
had been in 1861. 

One other event that makes that day of battle 
memorable belongs to no one section of the coun- 



366 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

try, but to all. The battle-field of Gettysburg 
was turned into a great national cemetery where 
the soldiers from North and South, East and 
West, lie buried. It was in setting aside the 
ground for this pious use that President Lincoln 
pronounced the noble dedication whose words we 
cannot too often recall. He said : 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in lib- 
erty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are 
created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing 
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so 
dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great 
battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a 
portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who 
here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is 
altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, — we cannot 
consecrate, — we cannot hallow, — this ground. The brave 
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have conse- 
crated it far above our poor power to add or detract. 
The world will little note nor long remember what we 
say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It 
is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the 
unfinished work which they who fought here have thus 
far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here 
dedicated to the great task remaining before us.— that 
from these honored dead we take increased devotion to 
that cause for which they gave the last full measure of 
devotion ; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall 



A MOMENTOUS FOURTH OF JULY 367 

not have died in vain ; that this nation, under God, shall 
have a new birth of freedom ; and that government of 
the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish 
from the earth. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS 

AFTER the fall of Vicksburg, the most im- 
portant point remaining in rebel hands in 
the West was Chattanooga in eastern Tennessee. 
This was the chief railroad center of the South, 
where lines from the West connected with those 
from Atlanta and the coast. The task of captur- 
ing it had been entrusted to General Rosecrans, 
a soldier of spirit, but testy and petulantly in- 
clined to dispute suggestions sent him from 
Washington. He had commanded the Army of 
the Cumberland since August, 1862, and on the 
last day of December and in the early days of 
January, 1863, had displayed such high qualities 
during the heavy fighting at Murfreesboro that 
the President sent him and his army a telegram 
of thanks in behalf of the whole nation. 

It seemed to be the nature of General Rose- 
crans to alternate brilliant activity with long 
periods during which he was incapable of doing 
anything except drill his troops and quarrel with 
the powers above him. After Murfreesboro it 

368 



THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS 369 

was midsummer before he moved again. Then 
he woke from his lethargy and in nine days of 
skilful strategy forced the Confederate General 
Bragg to retire as far as Chattanooga. This 
movement, ending on the day before the fall of 
Vicksburg, added its share to the Union rejoic- 
ing. Again Rosecrans became stationary and 
remained so for six weeks, to the great distress 
of the President and general-in-chief, who felt 
that the Confederates should not be allowed to 
rest and fortify that important gateway to the 
Confederacy. In August they sent Rosecrans 
imperative orders to advance. He delayed ten 
days, to assert his independence ; then taking the 
field, he crossed three mountain-ranges and the 
Tennessee River, while Bragg was expecting him 
to move by a different route, and compelled the 
Confederates to abandon Chattanooga, the Union 
Army entering the town without firing a shot. 
But to do this Rosecrans dangerously scattered 
his forces, and Bragg, who was not in full flight 
as Rosecrans fondly imagined, turned and at- 
tempted to whip the Federal detachments before 
they could be reunited. In this he failed, and on 
September 19 the two armies lay on opposite sides 
of Chickamauga Creek, eight miles from Chat- 
tanooga. 

That day and the next witnessed a battle in 



3/o THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

which there were enough dramatic turns of for- 
tune to furnish plots for a whole series of mili- 
tary novels. Because of a miscarriage of orders 
on the second day a gap was left in the Union 
line through which Confederate battalions rushed 
with a momentum that swept the whole Union 
right into disorderly retreat. Rosecrans himself 
was caught in the panic and, believing the day 
lost, hurried to Chattanooga to report the disaster 
and save the remnants of his flying army ; but his 
second in command, General George H. Thomas, 
took up a strong position at the head of a ridge 
and maintained it through a long afternoon, 
gradually collecting about him half the Union 
army and repulsing assault after assault with a 
steadiness that earned him the sobriquet, "The 
Rock of Chickamauga." 

The Union forces remained in possession of 
Chickamauga, but almost in a state of siege, for 
Bragg quickly closed in upon them and blockaded 
their river communications. The only way in 
which they could get supplies was by hauling them 
sixty miles over a difficult road. It was impos- 
sible to bring in enough to keep men or animals 
in good condition. Ten thousand horses and 
mules died of starvation, and each one that per- 
ished made it increasingly difficult to provide for 
the soldiers and beasts that remained. Jefferson 



THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS 371 

Davis visited the Confederate camp on Lookout 
Mountain at this time, and from the height above 
the town surveyed his enemies and rejoiced that 
they yvere caught "like rats in a trap." 

When it became evident that Rosecrans was 
powerless to extricate the Army of the Cumber- 
land from its peril he was removed, and General 
Thomas was promoted to his place, while Grant, 
now in command of all the Union forces between 
the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, was directed 
to go in person to Chattanooga. On the way he 
met and talked with General Rosecrans, who ex- 
plained the situation and made some excellent 
suggestions. Grant wondered why he had not 
carried them out. General Grant had sent a tele- 
gram to General Thomas, directing him to hold 
out, and had received an answer after his own 
heart, "We will hold the town till we starve." 
But the full force of that message came to him 
only when he beheld the wrecks of wagons and 
the skeletons of horses lying by the roadside and 
saw how bare the surrounding country had been 
stripped of food and forage. Even before he 
arrived, General William F. Smith had worked 
out a plan by which the long line of sixty miles 
could be reduced to eight. Under Grant's en- 
couragement this change was quickly made, and 
in ten days the men were strong once more, and 



372 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

the Confederates, aware that a new spirit ani- 
mated their enemies, began to wonder if, after 
all, their prey was secure. General Hooker ar- 
rived with the reinforcement of two whole corps 
from the Army of the Potomac. General Sher- 
man was expected with his army; awaiting his 
arrival, Grant wrote his orders for a battle, leav- 
ing the date blank. 

Chattanooga lies in a great curve of the Ten- 
nessee River. Back of the town a plain two 
miles wide stretches to Missionary Ridge, a nar- 
row mountain several miles in length. That por- 
tion of Missionary Ridge opposite the town was 
crowned with heavy rebel guns and defended by 
abundant infantry, as was also the much higher 
elevation some distance south and west called 
Lookout Mountain. It was from this height that 
Jefferson Davis had looked down upon the Union 
army. The Confederates also held a low hill on 
the level plain known as Orchard Knob. Grant's 
task was to gain possession of all these heights. 
He ordered Sherman's Army of the Tennessee to 
storm the north end of Missionary Ridge. Gen- 
eral Hooker's two corps from the Army of the 
Potomac, which had been camped thirteen miles 
away on account of the famine, were directed to 
move upon Chattanooga, possessing themselves of 
Lookout Mountain on the way; and Jhomas's 



THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS ■ 373 

men, already in the town, were to attack Mission- 
ary Ridge in front after Sherman had advanced 
far enough to make their help of use. ; 

Grant intended to begin the battle on Novem- 
ber 21, but rain delayed it for two days. ,Then 
the clouds and fog that had filled the valley lifted 
like a curtain and disclosed to the Confederates 
two splendid divisions of Union troops moving 
out with music and banners and all the precision 
of a dress-parade. At first the spectators mis- 
took it for this; but as they watched, the holi- 
day spectacle changed to sudden earnest. [The 
Union troops made a quick rush forward and, be- 
fore their opponents knew what was happening, 
had driven in the Confederate pickets, seized the 
first line of rifle-pits, gained possession of Or- 
chard Knob, and turned its guns upon its former, 
occupants. 

Evening closed with a great roar of artillery 
on both sides, and that night Sherman led his 
men across the Tennessee River to begin the at- 
tack on Missionary Ridge. He labored at this 
all the next day ; but the dramatic interest of that 
second day's fighting centered on Lookout Moun- 
tain. Its palisaded crest and steeply furrowed 
sides had been made, by means of excellent rifle- 
pits and breastworks, into a citadel capable of de- 
fense by a mere handful. The forces led against 



374 THE ROOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

it by General Hooker were about equal in num- 
ber to its defenders, who had, of course, their 
great advantage of position. But the Union sol- 
diers were not without a protection of their own, 
banks of rolling cloud to oppose to these ram- 
parts of stone. The mists had lifted only tem- 
porarily, and it was behind curtains of trailing 
vapor that they climbed warily, but steadily, up- 
ward. Sometimes they crouched waiting under 
the very muzzles of rebel cannon; again, taking 
advantage of the drifting mist, they advanced 
boldly over ledges and rocks. Their watching 
comrades on the plain below could see only masses 
of shifting cloud pierced by red flashes from the 
discharging guns. Then the clouds would part, 
give a momentary glimpse of battle-flags and ad- 
vancing men, and shut down again, blotting out 
everything except the noise of conflict. At two 
o'clock the darkness was so great that the fight 
had to stop. When the thickest clouds rolled 
away, it began anew, but by four o'clock this 
unique struggle was over. 

That night the defenders of Lookout Moun- 
tain withdrew, to throw all their force against 
.General Sherman, A day's advance had brought 
him to the point on Missionary Ridge that he had 
selected as his first objective; but once there he 
found that his work was all to do over again, 



THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS 375 

since Missionary Ridge was not one long continu- 
ous mountain as he had supposed it to be. A val- 
ley still separated him from the strong position 
of his opponent; but, as nothing more could be 
done before daylight, he intrenched and waited, 
the gleam of his camp-fires cheering Grant with 
the belief that he had fully succeeded. Next 
morning he attacked, and the conflict upon this 
[third and final day of the battle lasted well into 
the afternoon. From noon until three o'clock 
Sherman looked anxiously for the expected help 
from General Thomas, while Thomas's soldiers 
Waited impatient for the signal to advance. Gen- 
eral Thomas, with Grant and a group of officers, 
stood upon Orchard Knob watching the progress 
of the fight. The first line of Confederate in- 
trenchments lay four or five hundred yards in 
front of the troops. From that point to the top 
of Missionary Ridge, which bristled with guns, 
was perhaps nine hundred yards more. Half- 
way up the slope there was a third line of de- 
fenses. 

When at last the longed-for order came, the 
line rushed forward at full speed. General 
Sheridan of the cavalry, who was in the lead, 
looked back and thought that nothing on earth 
could withstand such a magnificent array of men 
and steel. The Confederates, seeing them com- 



376 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

ing, threw themselves flat in their trenches, and 
the Union soldiers went over and beyond them 
before they could stop. A thousand Confed- 
erate prisoners were taken in the rush, and sent 
to the rear under a leaden rain that poured upon 
friend and foe alike. 

The order had been for the Federal troops to 
halt at the first line of trenches and reform ; but 
to stop in that murderous fire was death', while 
to turn back was impossible to men filled with 
their spirit. One by one the color-bearers made 
their way to the front. The men sprang after 
them and, paying small heed to regiments or lines 
of formation, the whole mass began to mount the 
hill. The strongest were nearest the colors, but 
all seemed to sweep upward together. From 
time to time they dropped upon the ground, pant- 
ing and out of breath. At such moments the 
Confederates were sure they had been repulsed; 
but each time the blue line lifted and went on. 

The group on Orchard Knob watched in ting- 
ling excitement. As the troops broke away from 
the first line of intrenchments to begin the peril- 
ous climb, Grant turned quickly to Thomas and 
demanded, "By whose order is this?" Thomas, 
who knew his men, smiled proudly and answered, 
"By their own, I fancy." As they neared the 
summit, General Smith looked away, so fearful 



THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS Z77 

was he of failure; but Grant watched, with his 
face stern and set. When the Union line poured 
over the summit like the crest of a wave, a cheer 
broke forth that seemed to fill the whole valley. 
General Bragg had been riding along the ridge 
in triumph only a moment earlier, believing the 
charge repulsed. Lie turned to see his men in 
flight and his own guns being trained upon them. 
General Sheridan, who was a small man, but 
the embodiment of energy, had been in the lead 
below, and reached the summit with the best of 
them, though horseless. Lie climbed upon a 
cannon and from that height urged on the pur- 
suit. Even Grant's calm gave way under the ex- 
citement; and feeling the need for instant action, 
he ordered his horse and galloped away to the 
newly captured ridge. 

Once more the country rang with Grant's 
praises. Congress voted him a gold medal and 
revived the grade of lieutenant general, a rank 
previously held in America only by Washington, 
and in brevet by General Scott. Lie was called 
East to receive his new commission, and a little 
scene took place in the White Llouse that was 
characteristic of the simplicity of both President 
and general. Lincoln made a speech of less than 
a hundred words in handing him the commission, 
and Grant, with very evident embarrassment, 



378 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

read a reply that he had penciled on half a sheet 
of note-paper. These unavoidable formalities 
out of the way, the two had a comfortable talk 
together, quite without ceremony. Grant asked 
what special service was expected of him, and the 
President answered that the people desired him 
to take Richmond. He said that he could do 
this, provided enough troops were given him ; and 
these were promised, 

Richmond was to be taken; but after all that 
was only an incident. Grant knew that the capi- 
tal of the Confederacy might fall and its civil gov- 
ernment be scattered to the four winds, yet the 
Confederacy live on as long as its splendid army 
commanded by a splendid general remained in 
the field. Lee had become the idol of the South ; 
its affections seeming to cling to him the more 
closely as faith in Jefferson Davis waned and 
real hope of Confederate success faded away. 
"Lee's army will be your objective," Grant in- 
structed General Meade, who was still in com- 
mand of the Army of the Potomac. "Where 
Lee goes, there you will go also." Being now at 
the head of all the armies of the United States, 
Grant determined to use all, as nearly as possi- 
ble at the same moment, for this one task of van- 
quishing Lee's army. 

The new lieutenant-general gave little time to 



THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS 379 

laying plans and none at all to loitering. He re- 
ceived his commission on the ninth of March. 
The next day he visited General Meade at his 
headquarters, and there he spent one day study- 
ing the situation with the silent intensity peculiar 
to him. Returning to Washington, he declined 
an invitation to dine at the Executive Mansion, 
with the characteristic explanation, "Really, Mr. 
President, I am tired of all this show-husiness," 
and was off to the West to arrange his affairs and 
sever personal connection with the armies that 
had given him his victories. He promised to re- 
turn within ten days. Eastern newspapers were 
amazed. "He hardly slept on his long journey 
East," was the comment, "yet he went to work at 
at once." This is significant not only of the ways 
of his predecessors, but of the difference between 
railroad travel in the sixties and now. We do 
not consider the journey he made a long one. 

General Sherman was promoted to Grant's 
position in the West, and the two met to discuss 
the coming campaign. They agreed upon two 
leading movements. Sherman was to start from 
Chattanooga and lead the combined Western 
armies against the Confederates under General 
Joseph E. Johnston, who had succeeded General 
Bragg, while Grant was personally to conduct 
the Army of the Potomac against the army under 



380 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

General Lee. The two Confederate forces were 
eight hundred miles apart. Should either give 
way, it was to be followed to battle or surrender 
in order to prevent the two coming together. A 
few minor expeditions were to be arranged or 
were already under way; but these were the 
main outlines of the plan. 

The Army of the Potomac had present for duty 
one hundred and twenty-two thousand men; 
Lee's Army of Northern Virginia numbered 
about sixty-two thousand. But this was not so 
overwhelmingly in Grant's favor as at first ap- 
pears, because the Confederates held an immense 
advantage of position. Every hill and by-path 
of the country was familiar to Lee, while to Grant 
the region was entirely strange. Every white in- 
habitant was Lee's friend, ready to sacrifice all 
he possessed for the Confederate cause. Lee 
could retire, if he chose, into the prepared forti- 
fications of Richmond, where, according to 
Grant's opinion, "one man inside to defend was 
more than equal to five outside besieging and 
assaulting." Another element of very real 
strength possessed by Lee's army was its pride 
in the fact that for three years it had success- 
fully barred the way to Richmond. Every 
Union general pitted against it had failed, and it 



THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS 381 

occupied nearly the same position it had held at 
the opening of the war. 

It was indeed a wonderful army, and its leader 
was undoubtedly the most brilliant military man 
the war had produced. Grant, who had known 
Lee personally in Mexico, realized his quality, and 
did not underestimate the difficulties of his task; 
but, as he wrote in his memoirs: "The natural 
disposition of most people is to clothe a com- 
mander of a large army whom they do not know 
with almost superhuman abilities. A large part 
of the national army, for instance, and most of 
the press of the country, clothed General Lee with 
just such qualities; but I had known him per- 
sonally, and knew that he was human, — and it 
was just as well that I felt this." 

Hints of increasing want and of growing hard- 
ship in the Confederacy now came frequently to 
the North. With these in mind, and the glow of 
Grant's western success kindling popular im- 
agination, not many people realized that a long 
year of most destructive warfare still lay between 
Grant and his goal. Undoubtedly that also was 
just as well. He set forth with the utmost con- 
fidence of the country and the administration. 
President Lincoln, who had been forced so many 
times since the beginning of the war to interpose 



382 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

in military matters, took care to let Grant know 
that he did not intend to hamper his movements. 
He wrote: 

Not expecting to see you again before the spring cam- 
paign opens, I wish to express in this way my entire sat- 
isfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far 
as I understand it. The particulars of your plan I neither 
know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self- 
reliant; and pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any 
constraints or restraints upon you. While I am very 
anxious that any great disaster or capture of our men 
in great numbers shall be avoided, I know these points 
are less likely to escape your attention than they would 
be mine. If there is anything wanting which is within 
my power to give, do not fail to let me know. And 
now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God sus- 
tain you. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

ALL TOGETHER 

THE month of April was devoted to prepara- 
tion, and on May 4, 1864, when spring sun- 
shine had dried the roads and the battle-scarred 
orchards of Virginia were again in bloom, Grant 
began his campaign against Richmond. It re- 
solved itself into two parts: first, six weeks of 
swift marching and hard fighting, during which 
he strove to defeat Lee in open battle and failed ; 
then a long siege of Richmond that succeeded. 
The first was a contest of strategy as well as of 
battle. Grant endeavored to get south of his 
enemy, moving by the left flank. He bore off 
toward his own left in an effort to get around the 
right of Lee's army. Lee responded by throwing 
his men against the flanks of Grant's columns. 

The campaign had hardly commenced before 
the two were fighting in the region called the Wil- 
derness, a wild tangle of woods and streams 
where only a few men could be seen at a time and 
the effective use of large bodies of troops was im- 
possible. The first battle raged from the fifth to 

383 



384 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

the seventh of May, and was inconclusive, though 
Grant lost fifteen thousand men. The Army of 
the Potomac wondered if he was to be like all the 
rest of its commanders. Instead of ordering a 
halt or a retreat as they would have done, Grant 
ordered a further advance. 

On the tenth of May, Lee's strong position near 
Spotsylvania Court House was fiercely assailed, 
to little purpose. At the end of the first week of 
the campaign the Union general wrote his report 
of the fighting and heavy losses, ending it with 
that famous phrase of his, "I propose to fight 
it out on this line if it takes all summer." 

On the twelfth the Union forces stormed and 
held the earthworks known as the "Bloody angle," 
or "Hell's half-acre." In all the hard-fought 
battles of the Civil War, few so deserved the 
name. Trees a foot and a half in diameter were 
completely cut in two by musket balls. Men 
fought hand to hand across the breastworks ; and 
after breastworks were demolished, skulls were 
crushed, and guns were fired muzzle to muzzle. 
The enormous losses filled the newspapers, and 
people called Grant a butcher; but time only 
strengthened the army's belief in him. His im- 
perturbable calm bred confidence. He was one 
of the very few men whose nerves are absolutely 
steady under fire. He appeared not to know that 



ALL TOGETHER 385 

shots were flying. There was little of the pomp 
of war about him. Dressed like a private, save 
for the shoulder-straps denoting his rank, with- 
out retinue beyond an aide or two, he rode wher- 
ever duty called him. "Is it all right, General ?" 
a private would ask as he passed. A nod and, 
''Yes, I think so," and he would be gone, but his 
mood remained behind. "Lee no longer com- 
mands both of these armies!" the soldiers ex- 
ulted. "We 've got a general of our own now." 

So they went on, marching and fighting, until 
they reached Cold Harbor, ten miles from Rich- 
mond, with Lee's intrenched camp between it and 
them. Two days of inconclusive fighting were 
followed by a day of rest, after which Grant or- 
dered an attack on the third of June to break 
through the barrier. This attack also failed ; and 
though it was over before eight o'clock in the 
morning, the Union loss was between five and 
six thousand, an even heavier toll for the time 
the battle lasted than the tremendous loss at Fred- 
ericksburg. 

After this Grant and his men disappeared as 
suddenly and completely as if the earth had 
opened and swallowed them. "Where is Grant's 
army?" "Find Grant's army," Lee telegraphed 
frantically to his generals. What Grant had 
really done was to move once more by the right 



386 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

flank, "as though," one of his biographers ad- 
miringly observes, "Cold Harbor had never ex- 
isted." It was an audacious thing to do, almost 
as audacious as his successful march upon Vicks- 
burg. This time he had to withdraw from posi- 
tions within a few hundred feet of a watchful 
enemy and to cross two unbridged rivers, the 
Chickahominy and the James, in order to join 
General Butler's Army of the James, fifty miles 
away. Lee commanded bridges over both these 
rivers and, having inside lines, could get south of 
Richmond before Grant, and might even destroy 
Butler's force before he arrived. "But the move 
had to be made," Grant believed, "and I relied 
upon Lee not seeing my danger as I saw it." 

This sentence gives the key to the fundamental 
difference between the first commander of the 
Army of the Potomac and its last one. It was 
not Grant's dogged persistence so much as the 
contrast in their manner of reasoning. McClel- 
lan invariably overestimated the numbers of his 
antagonist and underestimated the difficulties un- 
der which he labored. If it rained, the mud 
would affect the movements of his own troops, but 
never those of his opponent. Grant reasoned 
more clearly both ways from a given point; and 
if any favor was to be given, was apt to claim it 



ALL TOGETHER 387 

for his own army. He "relied upon Lee not see- 
ing" the matter quite as he saw it. 

The great losses at Cold Harbor convinced him 
that he could not fight it out on that line without 
a hideous sacrifice of life; and this move of his 
across the James was in anticipation of a siege. 
Richmond was strongly fortified, its defenses hav- 
ing been planned not only to protect that city, 
but Petersburg, the town twenty-three miles to 
the south from which the rebel capital drew all 
its supplies. .Three railroads and two plank 
roads converged at Petersburg, and Grant hoped 
by this sudden move to gain possession of it be- 
fore Lee could send sufficient force to oppose him, 
>vell knowing that, with Petersburg in his hands, 
the larger town must surrender or starve. He 
almost succeeded ; but the narrow margin of fail- 
ure made a nine months' siege necessary. 

Including General Cutler's army and the rein- 
forcements that Grant received from the North, 
he had about one hundred and fifty thousand to 
Lee's seventy thousand inside excellent defenses 
-where, according to Grant's estimate, one man 
counted for as many as five outside. Grant pur- 
sued the policy of threatening Lee's lines alter- 
nately north and south of the James River, grad- 
ually pushing his own lines out meanwhile to gain 



3 88 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

and command the various roads that brought sup- 
plies into Richmond. In time they reached a to- 
tal of forty miles, and the end came when Lee was 
no longer able to man his defenses along their 
entire length. That day was yet far distant, and 
Lee used every device to make his adversary's 
task difficult. 

Meantime, on the day after Grant started upon 
his march, Sherman began operations near the 
battle-ground of Chattanooga and gradually 
pushed his antagonist as far south as Atlanta. 
Grant's main object being to annihilate an army, 
while Sherman's was to gain territory, they used 
different methods. Grant pounded away, fight- 
ing with sledge-hammer blows, reckless of human 
life; Sherman maneuvered with his antagonist 
Johnston for position, fighting a little here and a 
little there, but refusing battle under unfavorable 
conditions. Although Sherman wrote that dur- 
ing the month of May fighting was continuous 
across one hundred miles of country so filled 
with trees and undergrowth that it was rarely 
possible to see one hundred yards ahead, his loss 
was small compared with Grant's. When he 
neared Atlanta he changed his tactics, and a fort- 
night of heavy fighting ensued, with two princi- 
pal battles, one at Pine Mountain on the four- 
teenth of June, and the other at Kenesaw Moun- 




GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN 



ALL TOGETHER 389 

tain on June 27. Both of these were gallantly 
fought and stubbornly repulsed. Then the com- 
manders returned to their earlier game of ma- 
nceuver, and in July Johnston was forced to fall 
back into the carefully prepared fortifications 
of Atlanta. He had shown himself skilful 
and vigilant at every step; and Sherman, with 
approximately double numbers, had never once 
been able to take him at a disadvantage. But 
constant falling back was most unwelcome to 
the Confederate authorities, and in response to 
clamor for greater "energy," General Johnston 
was relieved and replaced by General John B. 
Hood, one of his corps commanders who had 
freely criticized his superior. He began by mak- 
ing vigorous attacks upon Sherman's positions, 
but soon found that he had more than he could do 
in guarding the defenses of Atlanta, which had 
to be evacuated by the Confederates in the early 
days of September. 

Atlanta was a Southern city that had been 
transformed by the war. It had become a town 
of mills and foundries, from which the Confed- 
erates drew a large part of their ammunition and 
military equipment. Its loss was, therefore, a 
heavy blow. Sherman proceeded to turn it into 
a purely military post. He furnished transpor- 
tation south for its noncombatants and their be- 



390 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

longings, and strengthened its defenses until they 
were nearly impregnable. General Hood pro- 
tested against the "barbarity" of sending away 
the inhabitants; but Sherman replied that war 
was war and that he was willing to abide by the 
judgment of posterity as to whether it was more 
humane to fight with a town full of women and 
children behind him or to send them away to 
places of safety. 

He was secure enough in his new stronghold; 
but his communications now depended upon a line 
of almost two hundred and seventy miles of rail- 
way to Nashville. Hood, who was too weak to 
attack Atlanta, devoted himself to systematic at- 
tacks upon this. After a season both sides grew 
tired of it as a futile waste of time and men. The 
Confederate attacks changed into an invasion of 
Tennessee, while Sherman made up his mind that, 
instead of losing one thousand men a month in 
merely defending a railroad, it was better to aban- 
don the whole line, to send part of his men under 
General Thomas to the defense of Tennessee, to 
destroy Atlanta's mills so that they would be use- 
less to the Confederates, and to march eastward 
with the remainder of his army, "making the in- 
terior of Georgia feel the weight of war." 

General Thomas's part in this program in- 
cluded winning the hard-fought battle of Frank- 



ALL TOGETHER 391 

lin on November 30. This was such a crushing 
victory that Hood's army was reduced to panic, 
and from that time ceased to be a factor in the 
struggle. But for some reason much less atten- 
tion is given in history to this excellent work of 
this most excellent commander than to the joyous 
and care-free march of Sherman's men as they 
swept almost unopposed to the sea. The Confed- 
erate authorities called upon the people of Georgia 
to "fly to arms and assail the invader in front 
and in rear, by night and by day" ; but there was 
not sufficient strength left in the region to re- 
spond. While Kilpatrick's cavalry kept the Un- 
ion front and flanks free from such improvised 
forces as presented themselves, and the negroes 
flocked to join the "invaders" in numbers that 
were embarrassing, Sherman's infantry marched 
across the State in four columns abreast, jubi- 
lantly gathering in provisions and wrecking all 
property that might be of military use to the Con- 
federates, completing the destruction of railways 
in a most thorough manner by heating the rails 
red hot over bonfires made of the wooden ties, 
and twisting them, while thus heated, around 
convenient tree-trunks. 

Those days of idleness while McClellan's army 
drilled and drew its rations and was reviewed 
by its handsome commander, and this march of 



392 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Sherman's bronzed veterans over the uplands of 
Georgia through the delightful autumn weather 
were the two episodes of ease in the long struggle 
of the common soldiers with the sordid details of 
war. The first was useless, and the march of 
Sherman's men was denounced by the South as 
the act of vandals, — an accusation inevitable, 
though doubtless colored by hate and personal 
loss. 

On December 10, Sherman reached the outer 
defenses of Savannah; and before Christmas he 
had captured the city. When five weeks later he 
led his men northward to join Grant, it was no 
holiday excursion that they began. The bracing 
weather of autumn had given way to winter 
storms, and the country through which they 
marched was that region of swamp-bordered riv- 
ers through which British and patriot armies had 
battled during the Revolution. In addition to 
the work of military destruction and of foraging 
to relieve their own hunger and increase the hun- 
ger of their adversaries, there were now endless 
miles of corduroy road to be built through mire 
into which the builders sank waist-deep. Under 
such conditions they traveled four hundred and 
twenty-five miles in fifty days, crossed five navi- 
gable rivers, occupied three important cities, and 
rendered the railroad system of South Carolina 



ALL TOGETHER 393 

quite useless. As they neared the North Caro- 
lina line, Sherman learned that his old antagon- 
ist Johnston had been summoned by General Lee 
to oppose his progress. Knowing and honoring 
the excellent qualities of this chief, he became 
more circumspect. Johnston fought two engage- 
ments, but the force that he had been able to 
gather was too small to seriously inconvenience 
Sherman. On reaching Goldsboro on the twenty- 
third of March, Sherman joined a Union army 
under General Schofield, which had reached that 
point by sea only a few hours ahead of him, and 
the combined force of nearly ninety thousand 
swept on toward Virgina. 

Slow as had been the progress of the war, the 
Union gains, year by year, were distinctly 
marked. At the end of 1861 the Confederacy 
controlled a solid block of territory covering 
more than a quarter, though less than a third, of 
the whole area of the United States. By the end 
of 1862 this had been almost, but not quite, cut 
in two along the Mississippi River. At the close 
of 1863 a wide band of territory on each side of 
the Mississippi was safely in Union hands, and 
each sundered half had been encroached upon 
elsewhere. The end of 1864 saw the Confed- 
eracy cut into four parts; and by the beginning 
of March, 1865, the operations of Grant and 



394 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Sherman and the bringing of troops East from 
Nashville to prevent Lee's escape into the moun- 
tains had virtually narrowed the field of conflict 
to the neighborhood of Richmond. 

It had been by no means steady progress. As 
late as July, 1864, General Jubal A. Early had 
suddenly led a force out of the Shenandoah Valley 
to within six or seven miles of the Capitol at 
Washington. In September, General Sheridan 
had swept down the same green tunnel, with all 
the impetuosity he displayed at Chattanooga, and 
had not only defeated Early, but had laid waste 
that granary of the Confederacy with such thor- 
oughness that there came to be a saying that "a 
crow flying the length of the valley had to take 
his rations with him." Gradually, but inevitably, 
the hand of famine was tightening upon the Con- 
federacy. To use that phrase which wakens pity 
and horror at once, the South was being "bled 
white." Soldier for soldier and man for man, it 
was never conquered. Woman for woman the 
mothers and daughters of the South matched in 
devotion any that the world has ever seen. One 
of their futile attempts at sacrifice was the pro- 
posal that the women of the South should give 
their hair as a common donation toward the pay- 
ment of the Confederate debt. 

The credit of the Confederacy had sunk to a 



ALL TOGETHER 395 

point where even the zeal represented by such a 
gift could no longer avert disaster. The rebel- 
lion was nearing the end of its resources. Want 
stared at the Southern people from every side. 
Their railroads, such as had escaped the destruc- 
tion of Sherman's march, had become so worn 
and dilapidated that they could carry, — and carry 
very badly, — only a part of the little freight still 
left to transport. Food was scarce and enor- 
mously high. Flour cost a thousand dollars a 
barrel in Confederate currency. Slaves had 
ceased to have any money value. Most serious 
of all, the strength of the South had been sapped 
in the brave men who died upon the battle-field. 
They had perished and it could never be replaced. 
Squads of soldiers were sent out upon the streets 
of Richmond with orders to arrest every able- 
bodied man they saw, and conscription laws made 
boys of fourteen liable to military duty. 

The Union authorities knew all these things 
and could therefore form a very accurate guess 
about actual conditions in the rebel capital, but 
no guess at all as to the length of time these brave 
foes could still nerve themselves to hold out. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

A GENEROUS VICTOR 

THE siege of Richmond went on for weeks 
and months with many grim incidents, as 
Grant stretched his lines westward and gained 
possession, one after another, of the roads that 
brought food to its inhabitants. The grimmest 
incident of all was the explosion of the mine at 
Petersburg late in July, when the colonel of a 
regiment of Pennsylvania miners used the skill 
of his men in an attempt to blow a hole in the 
Confederate defenses through which assaulting 
columns might rush and capture the town. The 
garrison of Petersburg learned what was be- 
ing done and countermined madly, to find the spot 
and stop the digging, while the whole town was in 
a panic, not knowing when or where the explo- 
sion would come. 

It was timed for daybreak on July 30, and the 
commanding general bivouacked that night near 
by. The hour came; twenty minutes passed, yet 
there was no explosion. Every moment's delay 
counted against success, as daylight must show 

396 



A GENEROUS VICTOR 397 

the Confederates the troops formed for the as- 
sault. An officer learned that the fuse had been 
lighted at the proper time. Another fifteen min- 
utes passed in tense silence. Then the Pennsyl- 
vanians sent word that two of their number had 
volunteered in face of almost certain death to 
enter the tunnel and find out what was wrong. 
They discovered that the fire had been interrupted 
at a point where the fuse was spliced. It was re- 
lighted. A shock like an earthquake was fol- 
lowed by the heaving into the air of a great cone- 
shaped mass of earth that hung poised a long 
moment while tongues of flame shot through it 
like lightning through the clouds. Then it came 
down in a dreadful shower of earth and splintered 
wood and mutilated human bodies almost upon 
the heads of the Union soldiers. A hole was 
torn in the ground, thirty feet deep and almost 
two hundred feet long. The sides were so steep 
that, once in, it was almost impossible to climb 
out again. The officer in actual charge of the 
assault proved unequal to his task. The soldiers 
attempted to go on without leaders and became 
confused, some stopping to help wounded Con- 
federates, some intent only on scrambling up the 
steep sides of the pit. The defenders of Peters- 
burg rallied on the opposite side, as more Union 
soldiers struggled toward the trap, while shells 



398 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

and shot shrieked through the air. It was Grant 
himself who extricated the men, risking his life 
unprotected on the outside of the Union earth- 
works to give the order to withdraw, while 
an aide followed, sick with apprehension. Of 
course he had no right thus to expose himself; 
the order to withdraw could have been carried 
by some one else; but hearts will quicken and 
blood tingle in sympathy with a commander who 
so forgets his duty to right a hopeless blunder. 

At the very end of January, 1865, three high 
officials of the Confederate Government, includ- 
ing its vice-president, came to Grant's head- 
quarters, desiring a conference with Mr. Lincoln. 
They worded their request in such a way that it 
seemed to the President well worth while to meet 
them in person, and he made the journey; but 
the interview came to nothing, for despite the 
straits to which their cause was reduced, they 
were not yet ready to admit that it had failed. 
On March 3, about a month after this interview, 
Grant received from General Lee a proposal that 
the two meet with a view "to a satisfactory ad- 
justment of the present unhappy difficulties by 
means of a military convention." Grant saw in 
the wording of this another attempt to enter into 
political and not military negotiations, and re- 
ferred it to Washington for instructions. The 



A GENEROUS VICTOR 399 

answer was as he expected, that he must hold 
no conference with General Lee except for the 
capitulation of Lee's army or for some purely 
military matter. 

By this time all the roads leading out of Peters- 
burg were in Union hands, with the exception of 
a single line of railway, and Grant began to fear 
that Lee might be moving his soldiers to safety 
by this route and that he himself would wake up 
some morning to find the whole Confederate 
Army gone, leaving only a picket-line behind. If 
this should happen, the war might drag on for 
another year. But Lee determined to make one 
more dash at Grant's lines before giving up Rich- 
mond. Grant had warned his generals to be on 
the lookout for such a move, and had added, 
''With proper alacrity in this respect, I would 
have no objection to seeing the enemy get 
through," — a statement which shows the degree 
of confidence he reposed in his army. 

Before daylight on March 25 the Confederates 
made an assault upon Fort Stedman, opposite the 
Petersburg defenses, with such vigor that it bade 
fair to succeed. The Union pickets mistook the 
Confederate skirmishers for an unusually large 
party of deserters, and the storming party that 
followed with a rush gained temporary possession 
of the fort, but with increasing daylight, the loss 



4 oo THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

was quickly retrieved. That this mere incident 
of the siege, not important enough to be dignified 
by the name of battle, cost Lee four thousand men 
and Grant two thousand shows the proportions 
to which the struggle had grown. 

Grant had been impatient to begin the forward 
movement that he felt sure must end the war ; but 
it was necessary to wait for the roads to become 
hard after the winter storms ; and he also wanted 
the help of Sheridan, who was away with his cav- 
alry on a final expedition in the Shenandoah. On 
March 29 this last movement of the war began. 
President Lincoln, who was at Grant's headquar- 
ters on one of the short visits that gave him relief 
from the strain of office, accompanied Grant and 
his staff to the railroad that carried them the 
first few miles on their way. He had a hand- 
clasp and a word for each of the little group as 
they stepped aboard their car; and the last thing 
they saw as the engine bore them away was the 
tall gaunt form of the President, standing almost 
alone upon the platform, looking after them, hat 
in hand. 

This culminating movement of the war was to 
be a movement to the left, but the general-in-chief 
gave out to his officers details of another plan 
that might be followed in case things went badly. 
He did not intend to have any miscarriage of his 




GENERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN 



A GENEROUS VICTOR 401 

real design looked upon as a serious defeat. The 
campaign developed from hour to hour. A storm 
set in which reduced the Virginia roads to that 
state of mud which "takes the valor out of a man" 
and causes artillery wagons to stand as firmly 
fixed as though rooted to the center of the earth. 
But if this somewhat dampened the ardor with 
which the troops set forth, Grant's confidence and 
Sheridan's whirlwind enthusiasm fanned it again 
to eagerness. 

Sheridan advanced to Five Forks, an important 
junction of roads southwest of Petersburg, where 
Lee gave him one of the liveliest days of his ex- 
perience. A messenger sent by Grant to learn 
how things were going found him being pushed 
back toward Dinwiddie Court House; but the 
band of his rear-guard was playing "Nelly Bly" 
as gaily as for a picnic, though with instruments 
somewhat damaged, and Sheridan stoutly main- 
tained that his opponent, General Pickett, was 
worse off than himself. Grant, more apprehen- 
sive than Sheridan, passed the night making ar- 
rangements for his relief; but General Pickett 
was evidently of Sheridan's own opinion, for he 
withdrew into his intrenchments. Sheridan fol- 
lowed, and in the thick of the fight next day, upon 
his coal-black battle-horse Rienzi, cheered on his 
men with such vigor that it seemed the dead them- 



402 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

selves might respond. He did in truth galvanize 
the severely wounded to renewed life, and gained 
a victory by which Lee's right wing was com- 
pletely shattered. 

That sealed the fate of Richmond. News that 
the capital must be abandoned reached the city 
on a quiet Sunday morning while many of its 
inhabitants were at church. The Sabbath calm 
broke at once into feverish activity. Banks were 
opened and besieged by lines of anxious deposi- 
tors. State papers were hurriedly bundled up to 
be sent to places of safety. Railroad trains rum- 
bled away, crowded to their utmost limit, leaving 
hundreds of would-be passengers behind. The 
governor and legislature of Virginia departed by 
canal-boat; and in the slave-traders' jail a last 
slave-coffle was hurriedly chained together to be 
taken south; but in the confusion and lack of 
transportation it mercifully went to pieces. 

Next morning Grant and Meade entered Pet- 
ersburg early enough to see the streets ahead of 
them still packed with gray-coated hurrying sol- 
diers. Confident of Lee's speedy surrender, 
Grant had not the heart to turn his artillery upon 
the departing enemy. After the last Confeder- 
ate regiment had passed over the bridge, Peters- 
burg became as quiet as a city of the dead. Being 
in pursuit of Lee's army, Grant had no time for 



A GENEROUS VICTOR 403 

captured capitals and did not himself enter Rich- 
mond. General Weitzel, sent with soldiers both 
black and white to preserve order, found the city 
in flames and given over to an orgy of lawlessness. 
The colored regiments worked with a will to put 
out the fires ; but the sight of former slaves in the 
uniform of their conquerors must have seemed 
to the inhabitants of Richmond the last bitter drop 
in their cup of humiliation. 

Bending every energy to get his army safely 
away to join Johnston in South Carolina, Lee kept 
up a fine show of spirits. His regiments were 
ordered to rendezvous at Amelia Court House, 
where provisions were to meet them. It was a 
terrible disappointment, when the half-famished 
men gathered there on April 4, to find no food 
awaiting them. A delay of twenty-four hours 
was necessary to collect supplies, and this proved 
fatal ; for by the time they could start again, their 
pursuers had spread out so that Lee was obliged 
to change his course. He turned directly west 
toward Lynchburg ; but Sheridan, in the advance 
as usual, learned of his altered plan. 

A man in Confederate uniform emerged from 
the bushes by the roadside as Grant rode by and, 
ignoring the threatening bayonets that instantly 
surrounded him, took a tin-foil pellet from his 
mouth, saluted, and handed him Sheridan's dis- 



404 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

patch. Grant gave it one glance, ordered a fresh 
horse, and bade the scout lead the way. Accom- 
panied by four officers and only fourteen men, he 
followed through the gathering dusk and through 
the moonlight, while the scout led them so close 
to Confederate camp-fires that one of the officers 
cocked his pistol and held it ready, half convinced 
that the chief was being decoyed into ambush. 
But the scout brought the little party to Sheri- 
dan's pickets, who demurred at letting it pass, so 
incredulous were they that the lieutenant-general 
could be roaming the country thus informally by 
night. A few of the soldiers, sleeping on their 
arms, woke and recognized Grant picking his 
way among them, and fell to speculating under 
their breath as to what was to happen on the 
morrow. After conferring with Sheridan, Grant 
went on to the camp of General Meade, and in this 
manner the night passed. 

It rained, and the soldiers were weary, but 
buoyed up by the consciousness of great things to 
come, they swept on next day in fine form. That 
night Union headquarters was in a little country 
tavern at Farmville south of the Appomattox 
River. As they marched by, the troops spied 
their general sitting on the dark piazza and gave 
him an ovation. Bonfires were hastily lighted, 
torches improvised, and cheers rang from throats 



A GENEROUS VICTOR 405 

already hoarse. Pursuit and flight continued 
throughout the sixth of April, the Confederates 
halting and partly intrenching, only to be driven 
out of each position. On the seventh, Lee's 
officers advised him to surrender, but he answered 
that they had too many men to consider such a 
thing. Grant passed that night in a room which 
had been occupied by Lee only a few hours ear- 
lier; and before he slept sent the Confederate 
general a note pointing out the hopelessness of re- 
sistance, saying that he felt it his duty, in order 
to shift from himself the responsibility of any 
further effusion of blood, to ask him to surrender 
the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee's answer 
was not "satisfactory," and the remnant of the 
Confederate Army stole away again in the night 
on the desperate chance of finding food at Appo- 
mattox and some way of reaching General John- 
ston. 

On the evening of April 8, General Sheridan 
succeeded in planting himself directly across 
Lee's line of retreat ; and though he had only cav- 
alry with him, and Lee's whole force was coming 
up the road, he held his ground. Supporting reg- 
iments soon arrived, and next morning, when the 
Confederates advanced, believing they had only 
horse to contend with, the cavalry fell back, dis- 
closing rank on rank of blue-coated infantry. 



406 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Then Lee knew that the marching days of the 
Army of Northern Virginia were over forever. 

On Sunday, April 9, a week almost to the very 
hour from the moment Richmond's calm had 
changed to the confusion of flight, the generals 
of the two armies met at the house of Mr. Mc- 
Lean at Appomattox Court House. Grant had 
offered either to meet General Lee in person or 
to send officers to meet any officers he might name. 
Washington had been equally considerate at 
Yorktown, and it will be remembered that Corn- 
wallis, rather than bear the personal humiliation 
of surrender, had sent General O'Hara. Lee, 
disdaining such subterfuge, came himself to give 
up his sword, a courtly figure, gray of beard, 
gray of hair, gray of uniform, which was immac- 
ulately new. Grant, who had not seen his per- 
sonal belongings since his night conference with 
Sheridan, stepped forward to meet him, still clad 
in his private's blouse with the shoulder-straps of 
a lieutenant-general, wearing no sword, and with 
his boot-tops spattered with mud. He seemed 
depressed, and his evident desire to make the in- 
terview as easy as possible for Lee caused one of 
the younger witnesses of the historic meeting to 
whisper under his breath, "Who is surrendering 
here, anyhow ?" 

It was the defeated general who brought the 



A GENEROUS VICTOR 407 

conversation to the point by inquiring what terms 
Grant was willing to accord; and after Grant had 
stated them and the conversation had passed to 
other matters, returned to it and asked that they 
be set down in writing. It is interesting that a 
full-blooded Indian, Colonel Parker, was the best 
penman on Grant's staff and copied out his chief's 
liberal terms, while Lee's secretary did the same 
with the Confederate general's short letter of 
acceptance. When these momentous documents 
had been signed and delivered, Lee took his leave, 
Grant and his staff accompanying him to the door 
and standing with hats raised as he mounted and 
rode slowly away. 

The news of the surrender spread like wildfire 
through the Union camps. Grant's gunners pre- 
pared to fire a national salute, but he forbade it. 
Before the week had passed, the nation was 
plunged in deepest mourning by the assassination 
of President Lincoln, the strong, patient civilian 
who had been at the head of army and country 
through four long years of war. Because of his 
death, there was never any national or wide- 
spread expression of rejoicing over the end of 
strife. 

The war virtually ended at Appomattox, 
though General Johnston did not surrender to 
General Sherman until the twenty-sixth of April, 



408 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

and General E. Kirby Smith held out beyond the 
Mississippi for a month longer. Before the end 
of May, however, the last Confederate soldier had 
laid down his arms. Before the end of May, 
also, occurred that final review of the Union 
armies as they marched up Pennsylvania Avenue 
in Washington before disbanding to fade away 
into the ranks of civil life. 

First came the oldest of the volunteer armies, 
the Army of the Potomac, with General Meade 
riding at its head. People cheered, and strewed 
its way with flowers. Next came the cavalry, 
seven miles of horsemen, led by General Merritt, 
Sheridan being already away on other duty. 
Night fell before that stream had passed by. The 
next morning Sherman's men from the West took 
up the march, with a trifle more vigor in their 
stride perhaps and a trifle less neatness and disci- 
pline in their ranks than in the ranks of the sol- 
diers of the East. With them came their squads 
of "bummers" and their regimental pets. 
Crowds of spectators lined the streets and cheered 
and cheered, acclaiming not only the men, but 
their battle-flags, grimy, faded shreds of silk 
and wool, at sight of which applause would sud- 
denly choke, to break out again louder than 
before, 

General Grant stood beside the new President 



A GENEROUS VICTOR 409 

who reviewed this great procession in Lincoln's 
stead. Ranks and spectators alike saw more than 
the living host that passed. All were aware of 
the greater, invisible army, those comrades who 
were not present, having given their lives to make 
this holiday parade possible. And when the 
black soldiers passed, for whom this day meant 
more than for all the rest, one and all saw the tall 
form of President Lincoln, who had so longed for 
peace. 

More than half a century has passed since that 
great parade, and most of the soldiers who took 
part in it have gone on to join their silent com- 
rades. Enmity did not die down in a moment or 
in a decade; but at this distance few, if any, in this 
broad land of ours regret the outcome of the 
struggle or question the justice of those words 
in Lincoln's Second Inaugural, when, speaking of 
the war, he said: 

If God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled 
by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unre- 
quited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood 
drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with 
the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still 
it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and 
righteous altogether." 



PART VI 

SPANISH WAR 

A Fight for a Weak Neighbor 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE UNEXPECTED 

AT the time of the grand review the Govern- 
ment had at its disposal more than a million 
veteran soldiers. They were rapidly disbanded, 
and two years later the regular army numbered 
about fifty-four thousand. Congress felt this 
to be a needless expense and twice further re- 
duced it, after which its strength remained for 
many years at about twenty-five thousand. 

Each household cherished memories of the 
Civil War, some of them sweet, some very bitter. 
To the last day of his life every veteran retained 
a pride in his knowledge of the technic of fighting, 
as well as a feeling that he was a specially ap- 
pointed guardian of the country he had borne 
arms to defend. But he could see no reason for 
teaching the technic to his son. Indeed, the de- 
sire to bring about friendly relations between 
North and South made it seem best not to lay 
stress upon it. Sentiment enjoined silence, and 
there seemed no practical need for speech. Se- 
cure in the knowledge of our good-will toward the 

413 



414 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

rest of the world, it appeared impossible that 
Americans would ever be called upon to meet a 
foreign foe ; and now that slavery was out of the 
way, it seemed even more unlikely that any ques- 
tion could arise to set our people fighting among 
themselves. 

Meantime science and invention wrought their 
marvels, changing our very thoughts as well as 
the details of our daily lives. Almost the only 
theory or practice that was not turned upside 
down during the thirty years that followed the 
Civil War was our old idea that an American 
army could spring full panoplied from the ground 
in case of need. Some of the lessons learned in 
the Civil War were utilized in channels of peace. 
Other lessons acquired at great cost seemed to 
be forgotten utterly. The one taken most eagerly 
to heart was the value of team-work, the marvels 
that could be accomplished by large masses of 
men working together. After the country had 
regained energy for new efforts, the era of great 
business enterprises set in, — enterprises in which 
veritable armies of men were employed, and in 
which, alas, the casualties were sometimes as 
great as in a battle. In time thoughtful persons 
came to see that our very success in business 
might be breeding dangers of its own. Corpora- 
tions that were inclined to take advantage of the 



THE UNEXPECTED 415 

helplessness of the poor began to find that they 
had to deal, not with individual persons as for- 
merly, but with brotherhoods of laborers and with 
great trade-unions, organizations larger than 
their own, and occasionally quite as unreasonable. 
It was admitted that strikes might lead to the use 
of armed force, but state militia was thought ade- 
quate to deal with the menace. Some state or- 
ganizations were excellently trained; but as a 
whole the idea that soldiering came by instinct 
had made their training perfunctory, and they 
were efficient along social rather than military 
lines. As the old darkey explained while watch- 
ing a governor's staff ride by in its gay uniforms : 

"Dey is two kinds ob soldiers. De malicious, 
dey 's fo' peace; de rag-lars, dey 's fo' wah." 

The small force of "rag-lars" was kept busy 
protecting settlers from restless Indians on the 
frontier or representing the majesty of the Union 
in our forts and arsenals. A military writer has 
said that it was "doing police duty," and that this 
was the period of dry-rot in the service. We did 
not keep up with new inventions, and gradually 
fell behind in many ways. 

Thirty-three years, a third of a century, passed 
before the country found itself again on the verge 
of war. To its honor be it said that when the 
crisis came it was not due to trade disturbances 



416 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

within our own borders or to any idea of conquest 
abroad. Cuba at our doors was being sadly mis- 
governed, and our Government, pledged to liberty 
and justice, felt called upon to interfere. 

From the days of its earliest discovery that fair 
island had been the scene of contention and ava- 
rice, one form of political tragedy following an- 
other in its romantic history. It was so near 
our own shores that its history was of necessity 
tangled with our own. Human motives are al- 
ways mixed. Cuba's harbors, protected at their 
narrow entrances by jutting headlands that 
screen everything which goes on inside, made the 
island an ideal place for the operations of numer- 
ous filibustering expeditions organized by Ameri- 
cans partly to help insurgent Cubans, partly with 
a view to benefits much nearer home. In addi- 
tion, there were many perfectly legitimate busi- 
ness enterprises connecting it with our mainland. 
More than one administration had tried to buy it 
from Spain. Spain answered President Polk in 
1848 that she would rather see Cuba sunk in the 
ocean; and whatever her answers at other times, 
her acts had been to keep it for herself and to 
resent interference. 

During the decade between 1868 and 1878, 
Cuba was in constant revolution, and the interests 
of the United States suffered to such an extent 




MAJOR-GENERAL WESLEY MERRITT 

>rom a photog-raph by Holling-er <fc Co. 



THE UNEXPECTED 417 

that President Grant threatened intervention. In 
1895 another revolution broke out in which not 
only American business interests, but American 
sympathies, were deeply involved. Spain sent 
over many soldiers to put down this revolt, and 
after a time ordered General Weyler, who had a 
particularly successful and cruel record in the 
Philippines and in Catalonia, to return as com- 
mander to the island where he had served as a 
young officer during the previous disturbances. 
As one means of enforcing his authority he or- 
dered that Cuban peasants who sympathized with 
the revolution "reconcentrate themselves" in 
towns occupied by his troops. Here they were 
penned up away from their scanty means of sub- 
sistence, and almost literally left to starve. Pic- 
tures of half-famished children, their little bodies 
distorted and their eyes pleading piteously for 
help, were printed in every journal of the United 
States and raised a tempest of indignation. 

In June, 1897, President McKinley formally 
protested in the name of humanity. Spain re- 
called General Weyler and offered the Cubans 
self-government, but by that time matters had 
gone so far that nothing short of independence 
would satisfy the islanders. By recalling Wey- 
ler and proposing reforms, Spain had admitted 
the justice of our protest; but American interfer- 



418 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

ence was resented, and relations with Spain grew 
more and more strained. During hostile demon- 
strations in Havana in January, 1898, General 
Blanco, Weyler's successor, thought it necessary 
to place a guard over the American consulate. 
Ten days later the United States battle-ship 
Maine, visiting Havana on a friendly mission, 
was directed to an anchorage in the harbor ; and 
on the night of February 15, while lying in this 
spot, she was blown up, with a loss of over two 
hundred and sixty lives. It was assumed in the 
United States to be an act of treachery, and there 
was great excitement. The Government took 
time to investigate ; but the finding of a board of 
naval experts that the explosion had occurred 
outside the ship, probably by means of a mine on 
the harbor bottom, did nothing to allay indigna- 
tion. At this point it must be confessed that 
anger became stronger than altruism, and that 
the vengeful cry of "Remember the Maine!" 
drowned appeals for the famished reconcentra- 
dos. 

Much as he deplored war, President McKinley 
was convinced that it was necessary to interfere. 
On April 1 1 he sent a message to Congress, ask- 
ing it to take action, but advising it not to recog- 
nize the insurgent Cuban Government. A week 
later Congress passed resolutions directing the 



THE UNEXPECTED 419 

Government of the United States to demand that 
Spain give up its control of the island, declaring 
that the people of Cuba were free and independ- 
ent, and authorizing the President to use the mili- 
tary and naval forces of the United States to 
carry the resolutions into effect. The further 
statement that the United States would leave 
the government of Cuba to its own people, and 
did not propose to exercise authority over it, made 
it peculiar as a declaration of war, but did not les- 
sen its hostile intent. 

Our army at this time numbered about twenty- 
eight thousand men. Population had so in- 
creased that it was a smaller number proportion- 
ally than we had ever had at the beginning of a 
war, something less than 4/100 of one per cent. 
Fifteen thousand men at most, taken a few here 
and a few there from necessary duties at home, 
were all that could be spared for foreign service. 
An army had therefore to be made before we 
could begin the war. The President called for 
one hundred and twenty-five thousand volunteers, 
while Congress authorized other enlistments un- 
til a total of two hundred and sixty thousand new 
troops had been provided for; and the answer 
came with a promptness which showed that the 
sons of the Civil War veterans had inherited all 
their fathers' patriotism. But they had not in- 



4 20 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

herited their training, and in some ways the 
young men of 1898 were not nearly so well 
equipped for their task as their fathers had been. 
During the years since the Civil War population 
had gathered in cities. Many of these youths 
had spent all their lives between brick walls, knew 
nothing about the use of firearms or about life 
in the open, and were "soft" in every physical 
sense. They were sent to training camps. We 
thought we had learned a great deal about hy- 
giene and sanitation in the meantime, but the rec- 
ord of preventable illness in these camps is not 
one to rouse American pride. 

Congress made its old mistake of allowing state 
governors to appoint regimental and company 
officers, with the result that most of them had no 
more training than the men under them, and that 
many of the appointments were made from politi- 
cal motives, with small regard to the fitness of 
the man for his task. There were no funds avail- 
able to buy many things necessary to an offensive 
war in a foreign country, and the military author- 
ities had to wait with folded hands until Congress 
provided the money. Some supplies required 
both time and money, and in these the United 
States was woefully deficient, owing to the Gov- 
ernment's lack of interest during the long inter- 
val of peace. Inventions and improvements in 



THE UNEXPECTED 421 

guns and ammunition had been continuous. 
Smokeless powder, for instance, had been in- 
vented and its worth demonstrated, and other na- 
tions, even second-rate powers like Spain, had 
adopted it. We had investigated and experi- 
mented, but had not adopted it ; and in the hour of 
battle the old-fashioned black powder used by our 
field-artillery gave our adversaries a murderous 
advantage in locating our positions. This was 
only one item in a long and discouraging list, 
traceable to our happy-go-lucky methods. 

Meantime the country clamored "On to Ha- 
vana" as insistently as it had clamored "Forward 
to Richmond" thirty-odd years before. The 
available regiments of the regular army and a few 
of the best equipped regiments of volunteers were 
sent to New Orleans, Mobile, and Tampa, to be 
ready to embark for Cuba; but there, perforce, 
they stopped. It had been hoped at first that 
Havana could be captured before the rainy season 
set in. General Nelson A. Miles, then in chief 
command, was ordered to take seventy thousand 
men to Cuba for that purpose. Just where sev- 
enty thousand trained soldiers were to be found 
at the moment is not clear. It became his pain- 
ful duty to point out to President McKinley the 
real situation. Havana was one of the most 
strongly fortified places in the western hemi- 



422 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

sphere. There were in or near it one hundred 
and twenty-five thousand Spanish soldiers, with 
one hundred field guns, besides one hundred and 
twenty-five guns of heavier caliber in strong posi- 
tions. The Spaniards were thought to have one 
thousand rounds of ammunition per man, while 
we had not enough available ammunition to per- 
mit an army of seventy thousand to fight one bat- 
tle; nor could a sufficient quantity be manufac- 
tured in the United States within the next two 
months. In such circumstances it would be very 
hazardous to send an unacclimated army to a 
tropic island in midsummer, especially when the 
enemy might gain control of the sea and prevent it 
from coming home again. Needless to say, the 
order was suspended; but the fact that it was 
ever given shows the confusion and lack of under- 
standing in high places. 

''Two things," says a military historian, "were 
necessary before we could attempt a campaign 
upon Cuban soil : first, control of the sea ; and sec- 
ond, an army." An army was being improvised 
as rapidly as our national traditions permitted, 
but, after all, the other was the more important. 
Spain and the United States were believed to 
have about equal naval strength. Indeed they 
were thought to be so evenly matched that 
the loss of a single battle-ship might determine 



THE UNEXPECTED 423 

the result, and eyes were turned in anxious in- 
quiry upon the sea. 

It was known that Spain had three fleets: a 
feeble one in the Philippine Islands ; a larger one 
commanded by Admiral Camara in Spanish wa- 
ters ; and the largest of all under Admiral Cervera 
at the Cape Verde Islands, those dots in the Atlan- 
tic Ocean about one third of the sailing distance 
between Spain and Cuba. As for ourselves, Ad- 
miral Sampson commanded a powerful fleet at 
Key West, an excellent point from which to block- 
ade Cuba and guard the gulf ports, yet within 
easy distance of our Atlantic harbors. What 
was known as the "Flying Squadron," consisting 
of two battle-ships and three cruisers under Com- 
modore Schley, was being held at Fort Monroe to 
reassure timid dwellers in Boston and New York 
who feared that Spanish guns might damage their 
cities. The battle-ship Oregon, pride of our 
navy, was at some point off the east or west coast 
of South America, hurrying back on her 14,700- 
mile voyage from San Francisco to join Admiral 
Sampson's fleet. Her exact location was im- 
possible to determine, for wireless telegraphy 
had not yet been invented. The possibility that 
she might meet disaster on the way, added an ele- 
ment of worry for those who could not find 
enough to perturb them nearer home. 



424 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

There was a fleet of second-class American 
ships in Chinese waters, commanded by an unob- 
trusive officer named Dewey. In the multiplicity 
of things to watch perhaps the majority of Amer- 
icans paid scant heed to him or his ships; yet it 
was he who provided the first sensation of the 
war. He was no novice in the service, having re- 
ceived his commission in time to fight under Ad- 
miral Farragut at the taking of New Orleans. 
His Vermont grandfather had answered the call 
of Lexington's guns ; and this descendant of his, 
albeit a quiet man, had inherited his decision of 
character. A story of the future admiral's child- 
hood illustrates this. He and a group of boys 
and girls were playing at plays, private theatri- 
cals being their favorite game. At the last mo- 
ment the heroine dropped out, leaving the usual 
void. Young Dewey directed his sister to as- 
sume the role. She declared that it was impos- 
sible; but he fixed her with his glance and said, 
"This play must go on." 

He was at Hong Kong when news came of the 
break with Spain. It was not unexpected, and 
his ships had already been provided with coal and 
painted the slate-gray color of battle. He was 
quite ready when the governor of the neutral col- 
ony ordered him to leave, and, acting upon the 
theory that "time is the essence of opportunity in 




ADMIRAL GEORC.E DEWEY 



THE UNEXPECTED 425 

war," sailed immediately to execute his orders 
from Washington, which were to capture or de- 
stroy the Spanish fleet in Subig Bay. 

Admiral Montojo, warned of his coming, with- 
drew to Cavite; and thither Dewey followed him, 
leading the way in his flagship, though informed 
that Manila Bay had been mined. Rockets sent 
up from Corregedor heralded his approach as 
the American squadron steamed in through the 
darkness about midnight of April 30. The Span- 
iards had extinguished all lights, but neither 
mines nor menacing shoals, nor a shot or so fired 
half-heartedly from El Fraile battery as the last 
of Dewey's ships slipped in, stopped them. Once 
inside the bay, they slowed down until daylight 
should disclose the position of the enemy. Ad- 
miral Montojo was presumably off Manila, where 
he would have the assistance of a powerful shore 
battery. Dewey therefore kept his ships moving 
gently in that direction, allowing his men mean- 
while to snatch a little sleep at their guns. Dawn 
showed the Spaniards lying instead off Cavite, 
five miles nearer the entrance to the bay. The 
flagship leading, the Americans rounded in a 
great curve to bring them closer, and that famous 
quiet order, "You may fire when you are ready, 
Gridley," was given in the early morning of May 
1, 1898, when the distance between the fleets had 



426 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

been reduced to about two and a half miles. 
Leading the way in the Olympia, Dewey passed 
and turned and wove back and forth, his ships 
firing with the utmost vigor, until the Spaniards 
had felt the power of American guns five suc- 
cessive times. Then he signaled to withdraw. 
Popular legend has it that the halt was called to 
allow the American crews to partake of breakfast. 
This struck the fancy of the people at home, caus- 
ing both amusement and pride. "We could lick 
the Dagos without half trying/' they said, "and 
stop to eat in the middle of the fight." The firing 
did stop, and our men undoubtedly needed their 
coffee, but we have the American admiral's assur- 
ance that it was prompted neither by hunger nor 
bravado. He feared that his ammunition was 
running low, and withdrew temporarily for a re- 
distribution. The smoke of battle hung so thick 
over both fleets that he did not know victory was 
already his, nor could he believe that all his own 
ships were intact. Even as he steamed out of 
range, however, it was evident that the Spaniards 
were in distress, and when he returned to finish 
the work, only the shore batteries and one gallant 
little ship remained to oppose them. That night 
the American admiral wrote in his diary: 
"Reached Manila at daylight. Immediately en- 
gaged the Spanish ships and battery at Cavite. 



THE UNEXPECTED 427 

Destroyed eight of the former, including the 
Reina Christina and Castilla. Anchored at noon 
off Manila." A short account, certainly, of a 
great victory ; and it was not until three days later 
that he found time to send a full report to Wash- 
ington. More than eight Spanish ships were ac- 
counted for, eleven being destroyed and two cap- 
tured; but the American fleet remained unin- 
jured, and only seven of Dewey's sailors had been 
slightly wounded. 

The American admiral bore testimony to the 
personal valor of the Spaniards, and to "the 
courageous defense made by all the vessels of the 
Spanish squadron," mentioning particularly "the 
desperate attempt of the Reina Christina to close 
with the Olympia, and the heroic conduct of her 
captain, who, after fighting his ship until she was 
on fire and sinking, lost his own life in his attempt 
to save his wounded men." Spanish pride was 
terribly hurt by the outcome of the battle. Some 
of the officers who escaped injury could not en- 
dure the disgrace, and that evening at sunset, 
while the Olympias band was playing "La 
Paloma" and other Spanish airs in compliment to 
the crowds gathered along Manila's water front 
to gaze at the American squadron, the colonel 
who had commanded the battery shot himself 
through the head. 



428 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Admiral Dewey's officers felt that they were 
away from the real theater of war, and were not 
prepared, for the enthusiasm and the flood of con- 
gratulatory messages that flashed to them as soon 
as the news reached home. But this victory, won 
before the war was ten days old, produced an 
electrical effect in Europe as well as in America. 
Dewey cabled that he controlled the bay and 
could take the city of Manila at any time, but had 
not sufficient men to hold it. This caused the 
war department to order that a force of twenty 
thousand assemble at San Francisco to be sent 
as soon as possible to the Philippines. Lack of 
vessels prevented the full number reaching Ma- 
nila before the war ended; but by early August, 
General Merritt had eighty-live hundred men in 
position three miles south of the city. 

While waiting the arrival of this force Dewey 
continued to blockade Manila. Foreign warships 
entered and left the bay, those of all nations ex- 
cept Germany showing him every courtesy de- 
manded by naval etiquette under the circum- 
stances. But the German commanders were 
either most ignorant or most intentionally offen- 
sive, giving the impression that they sympathized 
with Spain and were more than half inclined to 
openly espouse her cause. The quiet admiral's 
management of this situation reflected as much 



THE UNEXPECTED 429 

credit upon him as did his management of the 
naval battle, though it was many years before his 
reticence let all the facts be known. 

Admiral Dewey had brought back with him 
from Hong Kong one Emilio Aguinaldo, who had 
already given the Spaniards trouble in the Tag- 
alog insurrection of 1896; and this energetic na- 
tive was so diligent in pursuit of his old calling 
that within six weeks of his return he had organ- 
ized a brown army, set up a provisional govern- 
ment, and had actually mastered seven provinces. 
Indeed, almost the only Spanish garrison holding 
out against him was the one at Manila. This he 
was threatening, but General Merritt, who de- 
sired to avoid all possible entanglements, held no 
intercourse with him or his army, making his 
dispositions "without reference to the situation 
of the insurgent forces," and concentrating his 
attention on the defenses of the town. 

Manila was one of those composite places pos- 
sible only in the South Seas. The old town was 
surrounded by a characteristic Spanish wall, built 
with inclined planes on its inner side up which 
cavalry could trot comfortably to the top, and 
wide enough, when the top was reached, for a 
number of horsemen to ride abreast. This wall 
was pierced by six massive gates through which 
the townspeople had passed openly by day and in- 



43o THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

trigued their way by night for three centuries. 
Watch-towers and disused portcullises and other 
romantic properties of medieval warfare added 
to its picturesqueness, but did nothing to increase 
its strength. The wall, the cathedral, Fort San- 
tiago, even the old stone Bridge of Spain leading 
to the principal shopping district, were of Anda- 
lusia, but the Chinese curio-shops spoke elo- 
quently of the Orient. Outside the walls and be- 
yond the fire limits, the town continued in a maze 
of little settlements connected by narrow streets 
and winding waterways. Here the houses on 
stilts, with liberal accommodations underneath 
for pigs and chickens, were built mostly of bam- 
boo and nipa palm in a style neither Spanish nor 
Oriental. Two modern steel bridges across the 
Pasig River brought a Western note into the pic- 
ture. Mountains were to be seen in the distance, 
and to the west, on the waters of the bay, Dewey's 
slate-gray fleet rose and fell with the tide. 

The Spaniards had thirteen thousand troops 
inside their works, which consisted of a more or 
less continuous line of intrenchments around the 
entire town. General Merritt concentrated his 
attention upon one portion of it, that at right an- 
gles to the shore between himself and the Pasig 
River. With the fleet in the harbor and the 
insurgents in the rear, resistance was hopeless, 



THE UNEXPECTED 431 

but the soldiers of Spain played their part, 
making night attacks on the Americans and in- 
flicting small losses. General Merritt asked that 
the ships shell the Spanish lines, believing that 
this would end the night firing; but the American 
admiral feared that it might bring on the general 
engagement which he was anxious to delay until 
after the arrival of the next transport from San 
Francisco. When this had come, Admiral 
Dewey and General Merritt united in a demand 
for surrender. This was refused, and a com- 
bined attack of fleet and army took place on 
August 13. 

It was carried out with such gratifying pre- 
cision and such monotony of American success 
that historians are apt to dismiss it in a few sen- 
tences as being short and effective and uninter- 
esting. When General Merritt's troops ad- 
vanced after a preliminary bombardment by the 
fleet they found the trenches in their front empty. 
There was some resistance in the chief residence 
sections of the city, Malate and Ermita; but a 
white flag was hoisted an hour and a half after 
the fleet opened fire, and a formal capitulation 
took place next day. The American loss had 
been seventeen men killed, and ten officers and 
ninety-six men wounded. Thirteen thousand 
prisoners, twenty-two thousand arms, and nearly 



432 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

nine hundred thousand dollars in public funds 
were the immediate fruits of the capture. 

Much trouble was a secondary result; for 
Aguinaldo now turned his zeal against the Ameri- 
cans. He had respected General Merritt's re- 
quest not to take part in the attack; but he disre- 
garded the further warning not to enter the city 
in the wake of the American troops, and de- 
manded joint occupation. When this was re- 
fused and it was insisted that he withdraw even 
from the suburbs, he did so sulkily, only to dig a 
line of intrenchments facing the American lines, 
where he remained until the outbreak of the hos- 
tilities known as the Philippine War in the follow- 
ing February. In this long-drawn insurrection 
he led his pursuers a lively chase until captured ; 
but the story of the pursuit, interesting as it is, 
hardly belongs in this volume. 



CHAPTER XXX 

PRIDE AND HUMILIATION 

ADMIRAL DEWEY'S victory disposed of 
one Spanish fleet very early in the war ; but 
it was the least important one, and nobody knew 
the exact location of the others. It was learned 
that Admiral Cervera had sailed west from the 
Cape Verde Islands on May 29. Presumably he 
would reach the West Indies about the eighth of 
May, and would be obliged immediately to enter 
a port to coal. Admiral Sampson, who had been 
blockading Havana and the coast of Cuba, sailed 
with most of his ships toward Haiti and Porto- 
Rico to intercept him, and Americans gave them- 
selves up to a guessing contest as to where and 
when and how the Spanish fleet would make its 
appearance on this side of the Atlantic. There 
were timid souls a hundred miles inland who ex- 
pected to be blown to atoms by Cervera's guns, 
and optimists serenely confident that the mere 
sight of an American war vessel would be enough 
to scuttle the whole Spanish Navy. 

The numerous islands of the West Indies, with 
433 



434 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

their well-hidden harbors, made the search as ex- 
citing and uncertain as the game of hide-and-seek 
up and down the Shenandoah. Admiral Samp- 
son, who knew as little about Cervera's where- 
abouts as any one, bombarded the harbor of San 
Juan, Porto Rico, on May 12 on the chance that 
the Spanish fleet might be hidden there. Next 
it was learned that it had been at Curacao, off 
the coast of Venezuela, on May 14, and Schley's 
Flying Squadron started for the Gulf of Mex- 
ico. 

Because it was necessary to tow his torpedo- 
boat destroyers, Cervera made a very slow voy- 
age. Touching at Martinique, he learned the po- 
sition of the American ships and that they were 
about to bombard San Juan; so he changed his 
course and went to Curasao. He hoped to meet 
colliers there, but they had not arrived, and the 
Dutch governor, faithful to the obligations of 
neutrality, would allow the Spanish ships only 
fuel enough to take them to another port. Cer- 
vera heard that the harbor of Santiago on the 
southern coast of Cuba was unguarded, and en- 
tered it safely on the nineteenth of May. That 
very day the news was reported to Washington 
and sent to both Sampson and Schley, but neither 
of them believed it. Schley was morally certain 
that he had the Spaniards bottled up inside the 



PRIDE AND HUMILIATION 435 

harbor of Cienfuegos, and continued attentively 
to guard it until one of his officers went ashore 
and learned that the pleasant belief was errone- 
ous. Setting off then in all haste for Santiago, 
Commodore Schley found three auxiliary Ameri- 
can ships vainly scouting for the enemy. This 
confirmed his belief that the rumor was false and, 
being in need of coal and unable to take it from 
another ship because of rough seas, he continued 
toward Key West. A messenger-boat met him 
with dispatches that repeated the story" and or- 
dered him to get positive information. Fortu- 
nately, the sea went down ; he took coal from the 
Merrimac, turned back and, reconnoitering, dis- 
covered the Spanish ships. 

Cervera had found both coal and supplies 
scarce at Santiago and regretted that he had not 
gone on to Porto Rico. He still had enough fuel 
to take him to San Juan ; but while he hesitated, 
the sea grew rough. He learned also about the 
three American ships scouting outside and, deter- 
mining to await a better opportunity, lost his 
chance of escape. 

Santiago has one of those deep pouch-like har- 
bors characteristic of the West Indies. It ex- 
tends several miles inland, while protecting head- 
lands at its narrow entrance lock its secrets from 
the outside world. As soon as they were in- 



436 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

formed of Cervera's whereabouts, the American 
ships gathered outside. On the third of June, 
Lieutenant Hobson, with a crew of seven men, at- 
tempted to sink the collier Merrimac in the chan- 
nel near the mouth of the harbor. If they could 
thus block the exit, the Spanish ships would be 
effectively kept inside, while the American Navy 
would be free to go about other work. The next 
day newspapers in the United States were filled 
with accounts of the deed, which had been car- 
ried through gallantly and with success in all de- 
tails except one ; but that detail unfortunately was 
the very one for which it had been planned. In- 
stead of sinking directly in the channel, the Mer- 
rimac drifted a little to one side, where it formed 
no barrier whatever. On June 6, Admiral Samp- 
son shelled the forts at the entrance to the harbor; 
but Cervera's ships were out of range as well as 
out of sight, and his two thousand shots did little 
damage. Very soon after this he captured Guan- 
tanamo Bay, forty miles to the east, gaining 
thereby a safe place in which to coal and to take 
refuge from hurricanes; but it brought him no 
nearer his enemy, who seemed likely to remain 
secure as long as he could obtain food. 

It was known that the mouth of Santiago Har- 
bor was sown thick with Spanish mines, and that 
Morro Castle, the antiquated stone fortress 



PRIDE AND HUMILIATION 437 

guarding its entrance, mounted a number of mod- 
ern guns along with many of obsolete pattern. 
To force a passage and engage Cervera's fleet 
inside involved too great a risk ; yet Sampson and 
Schley could not afford to wait indefinitely for 
hunger to drive the Spaniards forth. The 
whereabouts of Admiral Camara's fleet was still 
unknown. Rumor said that it had started for 
the Orient by way of the Suez Canal on hearing 
the news of the fight in Manila Bay ; but it might 
easily turn back and attack our northern coast. 
If it did so, Admiral Sampson would have to go 
in pursuit, and that would release the Spanish 
ships blockaded at Santiago. It was important, 
therefore, to end the matter with Cervera at once. 
Since the navy did not seem able to do this alone, 
it was determined to send over soldiers to attack 
Santiago and its harbor from the land. "This," 
wrote one of the irrepressible war correspond- 
ents, "is probably the only instance where a fleet 
has called upon an army to capture another fleet." 
General Shafter, in command of the Fifth 
Army Corps, which was already at Tampa, was 
ordered to take his troops under naval escort to 
Cuba. A regiment or two might have sailed 
from Tampa with great ease, but a whole army 
corps taxed its capacity beyond reason. It had 
neither sufficient water nor sanitary appliances 



438 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

for such numbers, and its railroad facilities were 
utterly inadequate. During the weeks that the 
army had been waiting there supplies had been 
side-tracked all the way to Columbia, South Caro- 
lina. No labels had been placed on the cars to 
show what they contained; and until one was 
opened, it was impossible to tell whether it was 
full of boots or bacon, shells or shirts. That was 
just one detail of the confusion. An inadequate 
line of railway connected the town with Port 
Tampa nine miles away. At Port Tampa there 
were no storage facilities at the docks, and only 
docks enough to allow a very few ships to ap- 
proach at a time. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt of the Rough 
Riders, which was one of the three volunteer regi- 
ments allowed to go with the expedition, describes 
the embarkation as a "seething chaos." Notice 
came one evening that the start would be made 
next morning at daybreak, and that unless the 
men were aboard their transport at that time they 
would be left behind. Not meaning to have this 
occur, they were beside the railroad track with all 
their belongings by midnight; but the train was 
missing. The men lay down to sleep while their 
officers searched for information. "We now and 
then came across a brigadier-general or even a 
major-general," says Mr. Roosevelt, "but nobody 



PRIDE AND HUMILIATION 439 

knew anything - ." At three o'clock in the morning 
they were told to go to another track, — where the 
train was again missing. At six o'clock some 
empty coal-cars rumbled up, and by arguments 
very likely more forcible than logical, the engi- 
neer was persuaded to back his train down the en- 
tire nine miles to Port Tampa, where the regiment 
arrived looking like coal-heavers, but happy. 

Here there was even greater confusion. They 
were advised to hunt up the depot quartermaster, 
an apparently mythical personage. They found 
his office at last, in charge of a clerk who vaguely 
believed the quartermaster might be asleep on one 
of the transports lying at anchor far from shore. 
He was not; but with ten thousand distracted 
human beings swarming about and working at 
cross-purposes, he might as well have been asleep 
or non-existent. The colonel of the Rough 
Riders, now General Leonard Wood, and his sec- 
ond-in-command, who had separated to conduct 
the search on independent lines, found this official 
at the same moment, and were told that they were 
to sail on the Yucatan, a transport lying far out 
at anchor. Colonel Wood commandeered a stray 
launch and hurried on board, while the lieutenant- 
colonel, who had learned in some way that all 
three volunteer regiments were assigned to the 
same ship, which had accommodations for only 



440 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

one, ran at full speed back to his train, left a 
guard with the luggage, and double-quicked the 
rest of his command to the very edge of the wharf 
in time to spring upon the Yucatan as she came 
in, and to defend her against the other regiments 
that now appeared confidently expecting to have 
her for themselves. After heated argument had 
settled the matter, the men of the regiment spent 
the rest of the day traveling back and forth with 
burdens of food and ammunition, their supplies 
having been unloaded as far as possible from the 
wharf. The few horses that they were allowed 
to take to Cuba went on another vessel. Nothing 
was in its proper place. Many things were em- 
barked, with small heed to fitness or convenience. 
Medicines and hospital stores, for instance, were 
buried under heavy freight. 

The Yucatan was so crowded that the men had 
little chance to exercise. The meat issued to 
them was a scandal that cried to heaven. They 
had no facilities for cooking their unsavory ra- 
tions, no ice, and not enough water ; but they were 
embarked for Cuba, and before that glorious 
fact inconveniences dwindled. By the afternoon 
of June 8 the expedition was ready, but it was 
scarcely under way when sailing orders were 
countermanded because of a rumor that Spanish 
ships had been seen in Nicholas Channel. Await- 



PRIDE AND HUMILIATION 441 

ing new orders, the transports swung at anchor 
for five days, with the men cooped up on board 
in the stifling heat. They cheerfully made the 
best of it. Every book on tactics was in use 
from morning till night, and the one diversion the 
situation allowed, bathing off the ship's side, was 
enjoyed to the utmost. At last sailing orders 
were renewed, and the expedition was really off. 
The confusion of landing was nearly as bad, 
though the sailors and launches of Admiral 
Sampson's fleet rendered all possible assistance. 
Before disembarking, General Shafter talked 
with the admiral to learn the plans of the navy, 
and with General Garcia of the insurgent forces 
to learn the whereabouts of the Spaniards. 
There were in the province about thirty-six thou- 
sand, five hundred Spanish troops, but the Cubans 
had managed to isolate two thirds of them so com- 
pletely that they took no part in the defense of 
Santiago; a fact which must be remembered to 
the credit of the Cubans when it is charged that 
they did nothing important toward the reduction 
of the city. The Spanish forces in the neighbor- 
hood of Havana did not enter into the contest at 
all. Our army had therefore to dp with only 
about twelve thousand of the many Spanish 
soldiers on the island; and it seems that General 
Linares, their commander, did not use these few 



442 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

as well as he might have done. In the opinion of 
experts, half of them, rightly handled during the 
confusion of landing, could have driven General 
Shafter into the sea. 

The coast is very rugged. It begins at the 
water's edge with a broken ridge one hundred and 
fifty to two hundred feet in height, cut by ravines 
through which short rivers discharge into the sea. 
Back of this is a line of foothills; and back of 
these again is the low mountain-range called the 
Sierra del Cobre. Santiago lies several miles 
back from the sea on the shore of its harbor, and 
an occasional village is to be seen on the ocean 
shore. 

As a preliminary to landing, the navy shelled 
the village of Daiquiri, seventeen miles from San- 
tiago where the first six thousand Americans 
went ashore, and also shelled a few other villages 
for good measure, including Siboney, to which 
the landing was soon transferred. A force of 
Spanish soldiers had been at Daiquiri that morn- 
ing, but had withdrawn before the ships began 
firing, to make their stand at Guasimas, three 
miles from Siboney, at a point where a trail and 
what was called by courtesy a road, climbed a pre- 
cipitous hill through jungle growth, and came to- 
gether in a V, to continue as a single trail toward 
Santiago. 



PRIDE AND HUMILIATION 443 

General Shafter had no wish to bring on an en- 
gagement until all the troops and "a reasonable 
quantity" of supplies had been landed; but the 
eagerness of the men and the impetuosity of the 
officers, among them General Joe Wheeler, a 
gray-haired veteran who had fought on the Con- 
federate side in the Civil War, pushed General 
Young's brigade forward to this place, where a 
fight occurred, which has been variously described 
as an ambush by the Spaniards and a deliberately 
planned attack by the Americans. Owing to the 
dense growth, the latter could see very few of 
their own men and almost none of the enemy. 
The Spaniards were driven back with a loss of 
about thirty, the Americans losing twice as many. 
The Spaniards seemed to think that the Ameri- 
cans disregarded the rules of war. "When we 
fired a volley," one of the prisoners complained, 
"instead of falling back, they came forward. 
That is not the way to fight, to come closer at 
every volley." Another said of the Rough 
Riders, "They tried to catch us with their hands." 

This engagement secured for the American 
camps a well-watered location with Santiago in 
full view; but another result was less fortunate. 
It deluded the Americans into the belief that they 
would encounter no serious opposition. They 
spent the next eight days in landing and trying 



444 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

to bring a little order into the chaos of their sup- 
plies, quite oblivious of the Spaniards, who occu- 
pied the interval in industriously digging earth- 
works, as was found when the struggle for the 
possession of Santiago took place on the first and 
second of July. 

This proved to be a battle in two parts : first, a 
fight of nine hours in and near El Caney, a sub- 
urb of Santiago, where five hundred and twenty 
Spaniards, occupying a blockhouse and a stone 
church, disputed the American advance with stub- 
born skill ; and second, the taking of the real key 
to the situation, a ridge near the San Juan River, 
of which San Juan Hill and Kettle Hill were 
prominent points. The Spanish soldiers fought 
far better than they did at Manila, for the good 
reason that they had something to fight for. 
With Cervera's fleet intact, fighting seemed worth 
while. 

Military critics find much fault with our con- 
duct of the battle. They claim that the sacrifice 
at El Caney was unnecessary, since San Juan Hill 
could have been taken without it. They mention 
with eloquent reserve a captive balloon whose 
presence on our advance line gave the range to 
the enemy and enabled Spanish gunners to open 
with disastrous effect on our men as they awaited 
orders, huddled together in a long stretch of nar- 



PRIDE AND HUMILIATION 445 

row road. They censure the commanders be- 
cause of the small amount of American artillery 
in action, and say that the heavy guns were either 
left at Tampa or not unloaded from the trans- 
ports. They greatly blame the Government for 
only providing old-fashioned black powder. 
They say that the richest nation in the world sent 
only three ambulances to carry its wounded to the 
dressing-stations ; and they deem it most unfortu- 
nate that General Shafter should have remained 
in the rear because of illness. 

Perhaps there can be no unprejudiced account 
of a fight. The participants are sure to be biased, 
while the story of the man who was not present is 
open to question. In this case, however, much 
testimony points to one conclusion : that the bat- 
tle was badly planned by those whose business it 
was to plan, and superbly fought by those whose 
business it was to fight. An eye-witness wrote : 

Our troops could not retreat as the trail for two miles 
was wedged with men. They could not remain where 
they were, for they were being shot to pieces. There 
was only one thing they could do, — go forward and take 
the San Juan Hills by assault. It was as desperate as 
the situation itself. To charge earthworks held by men 
with modern rifles and using modern artillery, until after 
the earthworks have been shaken by artillery, and to at- 
tack them in advance and not in the flanks, are both im- 
possible military propositions. But this campaign had 



446 THE' BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

not been conducted according to military rules, and a 
series of military blunders had brought 7,000 American 
soldiers into a chute of death from which there was no 
escape except by taking the enemy who held it by the 
throat and driving him out and beating him down. So 
generals of divisions and brigades stepped back and re- 
linquished their command to the regimental officers and 
men. "We can do nothing more," they virtually said, 
"There is the enemy." 

Much praise was given at the time to the 
Rough Riders for their work in the capture of 
San Juan Hill. The Ninth Infantry, a colored 
regiment, was also commended. But it seems 
unfair to single out one regiment or one man. 
An officer who was asked after the battle if he had 
any difficulty in making his men follow him, an- 
swered: "No. I had some difficulty in keeping 
up with them." The white-haired General Haw- 
kins who led the Sixth and Sixteenth Regulars, 
distancing men thirty years his junior, was the 
most conspicuous figure in the charge, "so noble a 
sight that you felt inclined to pray for his safety." 
Then there was Roosevelt, mounted, and charging 
the rifle-pits at a gallop, quite alone. For him 
"you felt inclined to cheer." The number that 
made the actual charge seemed perilously small. 
A group close together struggled up the steep, 
sunny hill the top of which was a line of flame. 
They stepped heavily, and held their guns pressed 



PRIDE AND HUMILIATION 447 

across their breasts. Behind these few, "spread- 
ing out like a fan," were single lines of men who 
slipped and scrambled and moved forward as 
though wading through water waist-deep. The 
fire at the top doubled in fierceness as they ad- 
vanced. At every step one or more of them 
would pitch suddenly forward or sink down out of 
sight in the deep grass; but the line kept creep- 
ing higher and higher. Near the top it gathered 
itself together and went forward in a burst of 
sudden speed. The Spaniards were seen for an 
instant silhouetted against the sky, aiming, yet 
poised for flight. They fired a last volley and 
disappeared, seeking refuge in their second line 
of defense, while the flags of the storming party 
were driven into the soft earth of the captured 
trenches, and the sound of a tired cheer floated 
down to those below. 

The victors were in a most precarious situa- 
tion, for they were greatly exhausted and had no 
reserves to support them until the arrival during 
the night of the troops who had taken El Caney. 
With their help the position was held and the fight 
continued during July 2. That evening General 
Shafter called his officers together and proposed 
that the army fall back five miles to the plateau 
between Siboney and the San Juan River. This 
met with such opposition that he agreed to hold 



448 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

the position for another day and then reconvene 
the council. Next morning he sent off two mes- 
sages: one to Washington reporting that he was 
seriously considering this retrograde move; and 
the other a notice to General Toral, who succeeded 
to the command on the first day of the battle when 
General Linares was wounded, that he would 
bombard the city unless it surrendered. General 
Toral had heard that reinforcements had evaded 
the Cubans and would arrive that day; so he 
showed no enthusiasm about surrendering. He 
asked for an extension of time in which to remove 
the women and children ; and Shaf ter agreed not 
to shell the city until July 5. 

Meantime the American general sent off an- 
other cablegram that filled the Government at 
Washington with foreboding. He reported that 
word had just reached him that Cervera's fleet 
had escaped from the harbor, and that Sampson 
had gone in pursuit. With the army about to 
fall back, and the prize for which both army and 
navy were striving slipping away, July 4, a date 
so fruitful of crises in our country's history, 
seemed likely once again to bring us poignant 
emotions. It did, but they were emotions quite 
different from those Shafter's dispatch had led 
the officials to fear. 

Cervera sailed out of the harbor; but he real- 



PRIDE AND HUMILIATION 449 

ized that it was impossible for his ships to get 
away. He had sent two thirds of his men ashore 
to help General Toral, and had made up his mind 
to destroy his fleet in case the Americans took 
the city. But the authorities at Madrid and Gen- 
eral Blanco, who had supreme command on the 
island, decided otherwise. Cervera was ordered 
to reembark his men and take his ships out at 
once, and like a brave officer, he prepared to obey. 
At 9:30 on the morning of July 3 he led the 
doomed procession down the narrow channel in 
his flagship, the Maria Teresa, the others follow- 
ing in single file, a few hundred yards of water 
between them. The Viscaya followed the Te- 
resa, and was followed in turn by the Colon and 
the Oqnendo. Then came the two torpedo-boat 
destroyers, the Furor and the Pluton. It was a 
better fleet than the one Dewey sank in Manila 
Bay. In forty-five minutes after the American 
ships closed in upon them, the Teresa, "a floating 
slaughter-house," was beached and on fire; and 
within the next few minutes three of the others 
had met their fate. The Viscaya managed to 
keep afloat an hour longer, and went ashore 
twenty miles from the harbor, burning, and rid- 
dled with shot. The Colon lasted until 1:15, 
when she was beached fifty miles away. Two of 
the Spanish captains were killed, and two 



450 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

wounded, while Admiral Cervera and one other 
were made prisoners. One hundred and fifty of 
their men had been wounded and twice that num- 
ber killed, and seventeen hundred and eighty-two 
were captured. The total American loss was one 
man killed and less than a dozen wounded. 
Sampson was absent from the fleet, though within 
hearing, and Schley had been in command. 

The destruction of the fleet sealed the fate of 
the island, but Spanish procrastination managed 
to delay the surrender of Santiago until July 17. 
In this game of delay General Shafter was no 
match for his opponents. It was only after the 
arrival of General Miles en route to Porto Rico 
with an expedition, that the argument of fifty- 
seven good American ships off the city brought 
the formalities to a close. It was necessary for 
the army to remain in occupation for some time 
after this, and during these weeks disease did 
deadly work in every regiment. Yellow fever 
had made its appearance as early as July 4 and 
increased until three fourths of the troops were 
infected. It seemed equally cruel to leave them 
there to suffer, and to return them to the United 
States to spread the disease. Finally Shafter's 
officers united in a round-robin which read, "This 
army must be moved at once, or it will perish." 
Jhe army surgeons signed a similar paper, and 



PRIDE AND HUMILIATION 451 

the effect of the two was to hasten orders for the 
return of the troops to a healthful quarantined 
post on Long Island; four regiments that were 
immune from the disease replacing them for 
guard-duty in Cuba. 

It is gratifying to record that in face of the 
same problems and drawbacks, the tropical rainy 
season, bad roads, inadequate facilities for land- 
ing, black powder, and a force inferior to that 
of the enemy, General Miles's expedition to 
Porto Rico proved a contrast to the nightmare of 
our invasion of Cuba. General Miles profited 
by the experience and mistakes of his brother- 
officers. With even a smaller force than was 
originally planned, because the yellow fever made 
it impossible to detach any of Shafter's regi- 
ments, he managed to land where he was not ex- 
pected and to move his army in four columns 
toward the conquest of the island so successfully 
that when word came that an armistice had been 
arranged and that military operations must cease, 
his men could not forego a little grumbling. 
"The simple fact is," wrote General Wilson, "that 
the campaign and occupation of Porto Rico in 
July and August were managed so well that the 
officers and men, as well as the people of the is- 
land, regarded it as a continuous picnic or gala 
fiesta." Says another writer: "Porto Rico was 



452 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

a picnic because the commanding generals would 
not permit the enemy to make it otherwise. The 
Spaniards were willing to make it another night- 
mare. They were just as ready to kill in Porto 
Rico as in Cuba, — but our commanding general 
in Porto Rico was able to prevent their doing so." 

This war, with a brilliant naval victory at each 
end, lasted one hundred and nine days. From 
the point of view of national pride there are two 
ways of regarding it, and both are worth consid- 
eration. Not a single defeat was met, and not a 
prisoner, color, gun, or rifle was captured by the 
enemy. "In this respect," said General Miles's 
report, "the war has been most remarkable, and 
perhaps unparalleled." General Shafter added 
his testimony as to the army discipline. He 
called it "superb," and said that as far as he knew, 
neither an officer nor an enlisted man was brought 
to trial by court martial. 

The other way of looking at this campaign is 
that one of the great nations of the earth found 
difficulty in sending a few thousand soldiers to a 
nearby island. It fed them "embalmed" beef, 
— a scandal that reeks after twenty years. It 
equipped them with a kind of ammunition so out 
of date that poor broken-down powers like Spain, 
disdained it. It was criminally reckless of human 
life in sending unacclimated men into the field. 




GENERAL NELSON A. MILES 



PRIDE AND HUMILIATION 453 

Worse still, it let sickness get into its camps of in- 
struction at home, as well as into its camps in 
Cuba, and take immense toll. "Out of 223,235 
volunteers enlisted during the war," says Huyde- 
koper, "only 289 were killed or died of wounds 
received in action, whereas no less than 3,848 
died of disease. And it must be distinctly re- 
membered that the majority of these volunteers 
never got into action at all." 

Spain had in Cuba about one hundred and 
ninety-eight thousand soldiers. We sent about 
seventeen or eighteen thousand. Good luck over- 
came the discrepancy, — amazing good luck, such 
as could not be expected to happen twice in the 
lifetime of the planet. Thanks to Garcia, the 
troops in the province of Santiago were hopelessly 
divided before the landing of our forces, and 
those available were not used as they should have 
been. Experts also believe that if Admiral Ca- 
mara's fleet had hurried to our northern shore 
while Madrid boasted loudly of what it would 
accomplish, Sampson would have been forced to 
return to defend the North Atlantic ports, and 
Cervera could have sailed out of Santiago to co- 
operate with his brother admiral. Apparently 
then, the unwisdom of the Spanish commanders 
was pitted against the stupidity of America's 
haphazard methods of going to war. Perhaps it 



454 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

will require severe defeat instead of expensive 
victory to teach us the value of preparation. 

The war freed Cuba as we intended, but it did 
many other things that were not in our original 
plan. It changed the relations of the United 
States to the whole world, and saddled upon our 
Government large and vexatious problems that 
we never dreamed of assuming. Had the voters 
of the country been told at the beginning of that 
hundred days that the war would end without a 
single military reverse, they would have thrown 
up their hats and given three rousing cheers and 
then added, "Of course." Had it been predicted 
that two naval battles and the taking of two cities 
would bring into the United States as permanent 
possessions the whole Philippine archipelago, 
Guam, Hawaii, and Porto Rico, ninety out of 
every hundred would have received it with shouts 
of laughter as a huge joke, and the other ten 
would have turned away shaking their heads in 
doubt. Had the orgy of disease and mismanage- 
ment been foretold, the prophet might have es- 
caped with his life, but only after rough handling. 

Our war with Spain resulted in great victory; 
but it was a most chastening experience. 



PART VII 
1917 

A Fight for Humanity 



CHAPTER XXXI 

OUR HERITAGE OF RESPONSIBILITY 

THE fashions of battle change. In the days 
of Louis Fourteenth wars were largely a 
matter of siege and defense. Napoleon and 
Frederick the Great developed offensive cam- 
paigning. In our own Civil War we strength- 
ened the defense. Infantry fire, with American 
accuracy of aim behind the rifle, was immensely 
effective ; and intrenching, even while a battle was 
in progress, was carried to a point of perfection 
never attained before. Yet the trenches of our 
armies in Virginia were the merest scratches on 
the surface of the earth compared with the deep- 
planned and deep-dug defenses in France today. 
We are told that cavalry charges are now a thing 
of the past ; that rifles are relics to be placed in a 
museum ; that cannon, and more cannon, and still 
heavier cannon are needed. "This is a war of 
instruments and tools," says an expert. "It is 
the man behind the gun that counts; but if he has 
not the gun, he does not count." 

It would indeed seem that all the methods and 
all the weapons of all the ages, from arrows to 

457 



458 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

aeroplanes and poison gas are called into service 
today. Slow airplanes for observation and pho- 
tography; swift flying machines to protect them; 
the immense importance of heavy artillery; the 
passing of the rifle in favor of the hand-grenade, 
the bayonet, the revolver, or any weapon suited 
to hand-to-hand fighting; the stellar roles as- 
sumed by spade and barbed wire ; trench mortars ; 
helmets that are a triumph of modern cunning, 
yet look like the headgear of the Crusades; 
armoured motor-car batteries; tanks that look 
like nothing seen on earth since the age of the 
dinosaur; camouflage, the art of imitative color- 
ing, learned from microscopic insects and magni- 
fied to dimensions capable of protecting an entire 
frontier. The student who would read of war 
today must master a whole new language, braided 
together of science and industry and skill. 

Only one thing remains unchanged, — the need 
for well-trained soldiers. The experience of past 
and present, of foreign nations and our own, is 
incessantly the same on this point. The short 
terms of enlistment in our War of the Revolu- 
tion were most wasteful. "Lighthorse Harry" 
Lee asserted that "a government is the murderer 
of its citizens which sends them to the field unin- 
formed and untaught," to fight men disciplined 
for battle. A recent military authority points out 



HERITAGE OF RESPONSIBILITY 459 

a fact which he rightly says every schoolboy 
knows, "that no enthusiasm however great, will 
win athletic victories without long weeks and even 
months of training." He calls drudgery "the 
Gray Angel of success." Our campaigns in 
Mexico, where we had the greatest proportion of 
regulars and trained officers, were the most bril- 
liantly successful. 

The volunteers of 1861 were exceptionally in- 
telligent, and carried into their new work all the 
skill of their old trades. The mine at Petersburg- 
was only one unfortunate example of the kind of 
thing that went on in almost every regiment, 
North and South. Not every nation has infantry 
that can repair more than a hundred miles of rail- 
road in forty days, forging and manufacturing 
its own tools as it goes along. Not every general 
has at his command an engineer capable of build- 
ing "out of jackstraws" a bridge strong enough 
to bear the weight of an army, as was said of one 
man with the soldiers of the Union. Not all gun- 
boat crews are adepts in such logging operations 
as were required by Grant in his attempts against 
Vicksburg. President Lincoln called a certain 
able officer his "web-footed general" because he 
held one commission in the army and another in 
the navy, and was equally fitted for command in 
both. Yet despite all this intelligence and adapt- 



460 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

ability, more than a year had to pass before the 
soldiers North and South could do their best. 
The mind shudders at what might have happened 
had a fully prepared enemy ever come among us 
during the months when our soldiers were pass- 
ing through their larva and pupa stages. 

It is stated on authority that fifty per cent of 
new recruits drop out for one cause or another 
during the first six months of service. This pro- 
vides food for thought. General Joffre was 
quoted as saying that it would require time for 
him to catch up with things after his short visit 
to the United States in the spring of 191 7, be- 
cause "ways of making war change every day 
now, — almost every hour." A recent English 
writer has stated that the practise of war altered 
more in the two years between 1914 and 1916 
than in the two thousand years that preceded 
them. 

Every one of our American wars has had a 
character of its own. The determined farmers 
of the Revolution; the gallant sailors of those 
stirring sea-fights of 18 12; our care-free young 
men and officers marching through Mexico; the 
set spare faces of our Civil War veterans; the 
plucky slangy youths of that unhappy campaign 
in Cuba; could hardly have found places in any 
campaign except their own, though each was 



HERITAGE OF RESPONSIBILITY 461 

fought by Americans, full of American faults 
and virtues. Perhaps this unlikeness of one con- 
flict to another explains, in part, why, though 
each of our wars has trained officers for the next, 
it has been rare for one general to achieve suc- 
cess in two wars. Either he has been obscure in 
one and prominent in the next, or, successful in 
the first, he has failed lamentably in the second. 
Another reason is of course the strain that war 
puts upon a man. It wears out the human ma- 
chine. 

War has its triumphs of healing as well as of 
destruction. The world learns slowly, — far too 
slowly, as the prevalence of disease in our camps 
of instruction during the war with Spain, proved. 
Yet when we review the work of a century and 
more in army medicine, we see how it has ad- 
vanced. Washington's hospital at Valley Forge 
is still standing; a little cabin with hard wooden 
bunks in tiers along its walls, and a rough wooden 
operating table, ostentatiously grim, in the middle 
of the room. That was before the day of anes- 
thetics. The tortures of his wounded are not 
easy to contemplate. And scarcely an account 
of siege or camp up to that time, or even later, 
fails to mention quite casually that smallpox was 
raging. Disease was thought to be an unavoid- 
able part of the cruel fortunes of war. 



462 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

The Sanitary Commission of the days of the 
Civil War, organized to give Union soldiers com- 
fort and healthful conditions in camp and hos- 
pital, undertook such work on a larger scale than 
had ever been attempted in America, and became 
the fore-runner of our great Red Cross. Yet the 
methods in use then seem little less than criminal 
now. "Think how we treated those cases," 
wrote a surgeon who was young in those days and 
has lived to see the marvels of his profession as 
practised at present. "We knew absolutely noth- 
ing about bacteria and their dangers, or about 
real infection and real disinfection. Anything 
that covered up a bad smell we then called a dis- 
infectant. We thrust our undisinfected fingers 
into wounds. ... Is it any wonder that blood 
poisoning had, to our shame, a mortality of 97.4 
per cent? 

The greatest triumph of the Spanish War was 
not over Spaniards on land or sea; nor was it 
achieved solely by Americans. It came after- 
ward, during the American occupation of Cuba, 
when army surgeons, with army devotion to duty, 
won for the cause of science the secret of the 
mosquito which carries yellow fever, and by the 
help of army discipline succeeded in banishing 
that scourge from the city of Havana, where it 
had not relaxed its grip for one hundred and fifty 



HERITAGE OF RESPONSIBILITY 463 

years. That, and the later victory of our General 
Gorgas over tropic illness in Panama, long be- 
lieved to be the sickliest spot on the earth's sur- 
face, show what armies can do when their forces 
are trained against disease. Such discoveries 
are not necessarily made because of war ; but they 
have been hastened because of war's great need. 
Already medical discoveries of the greatest value 
have been made in the present war; of these, a 
new treatment of cleansing and healing wounds 
bids fair to do away with the necessity for maim- 
ing and amputation in four cases out of every five. 
Fortunately there is an international fellowship 
in such strife, and many surgeons of many na- 
tions have contributed their share to victories 
which will benefit mankind long after the names 
of these gallant soldiers have faded from memory. 
There is another aspect too, in which the 
world is growing civilized, though we are slow to 
believe it. Unspeakable atrocities have been 
committed since the present year was born. 
They have occurred in greater or less measure in 
every war since the beginning of recorded history. 
The outcry against them now, shows not only that 
there are still brutes in human form, but that 
public sentiment is shocked and horrified by acts 
which would not have called forth half the protest 
a hundred years ago. During our French and 



464 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

Indian Wars the massacres by Indian allies were 
accepted as a matter of course, just as smallpox 
was. 

War is indeed a dreadful business. We look 
forward hopefully to a time when it shall cease, 
as slavery has already ceased among civilized 
people. But from the dawn of history to the 
present day it has been one of the painful, costly 
means whereby great reforms have come to pass. 
A noble purpose is its only excuse ; but there are 
some things worse than war fought in a righteous 
cause. Indifference to moral issues, a careless- 
ness whether evil flourishes or is cut down, shows 
a national state of mind more to be deplored than 
all the waste and agony of battle. 

A time of war is sure to be either a time of 
great spiritual growth or of rapid moral decay. 
In the case of our own country the large part 
wars have played in upbuilding the ideals of 
our peace-loving people is only realized when we 
try to imagine how the United States would have 
developed without them. The mind refuses the 
task at the very beginning, for without revolu- 
tion we should never have become one country. 
"The splendor of nationality" dawned upon the 
thirteen colonies through the smoke of battle. 
Twice it has been granted to Americans to rise 
to greater moral heights through the bitterness 



HERITAGE OF RESPONSIBILITY 465 

of war. The Revolution, begun in a quarrel 
about taxes, ended a willing sacrifice to the ideal 
of a nation dedicated to political liberty. Again, 
after we had grown prosperous and indifferent, 
war came upon us, and strife begun in selfishness 
ended by setting an oppressed race free. 

All sections of our country contributed in turn 
to these, our highest national ideals. The Puri- 
tan sense of justice, born of religious conviction 
and bred in the stern air of New England, gave 
the first impulse toward freedom. But it was not 
New England, it was Virginia, oldest and mellow- 
est of the colonies, that produced Washington. 
Lee, the greatest general of the Civil War, came 
from the South; but it was the West, with its 
wide skies and democratic simplicity, that gave us 
Lincoln. 

Washington and Lincoln, our most beloved 
heroes, are our heritage from years of battle. 
Not, be it always remembered, because of war- 
like desires or warlike purposes, but for upright- 
ness and strength and purity of motive, working 
through the impediment of war toward a goal of 
righteous peace. Washington, one of the rich- 
est Americans of his generation, and Lincoln, one 
of the poorest in that noble democratic army of 
high ideals and small fortunes, stand as American 
types in our two great crises, strangely alike and 



466 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

subtly different. Both were physically vigorous 
and commanding beyond ordinary men ; both were 
benign of aspect; both "looked inward" in their 
search for truth. Both modestly underestimated 
their own abilities, Washington asserting that he 
was "not equal" to the command of the Conti- 
nental Army, Lincoln saying that he was "not 
fit" to be President. Yet each accepted his task 
as a duty laid upon him, and pursued it fearlessly, 
growing in strength and wisdom to meet every 
need. 

After all, our country is still very young. The 
national heart beats with the throb of youth; 
and with the answer of youth we have replied, to 
the new call that has come to us from across the 
sea. "The instinct that sends a nation to battle 
is deeper than words or eloquence . . . and 
those who fight or send their sons to fight can say 
whether there is great difference between the 
drum-beat of '76 and '6i and '17." The call 
stirs not only emotions that leap forward, but 
echoes that reach back into our past. A cen- 
tenarian, daughter of a soldier who fought under 
Washington and Lafayette, but herself not aged, 
— only "one hundred and one years young," as 
Edward Everett Hale would have said, — applied 
to the treasury on the first call for the privilege 
of buying a Liberty Bond. The gray-clad Con- 



HERITAGE OF RESPONSIBILITY 467 

federate veterans, white-haired survivors of 
Lee's armies, who walked up Pennsylvania 
Avenue not many months ago, some of them with 
uncertain steps, but keeping step with survivors 
of the Grand Army of the Republic, did so 
through a blaze of national colors, British, Bel- 
gian, French, Italian, Russian, with their eyes 
upon one flag, the Stars and Stripes, and their 
desires outstripping their physical strength. 
How some of them envied their stalwart grand- 
sons in khaki who marched in the same parade 
and were soon to brave the perils of the sea to 
fight in France ! 

Up to this time our country has profited to the 
utmost by the cruel kindness of war, but has 
never felt war's full horror. We have been 
scorched, but never burned, by its terrible flame. 
It is true that we twice suffered invasion; but 
only the edge of the land was touched. Portions 
of the South suffered greatly during the struggle 
over slavery, but as a whole the country knew 
little of war's physical horror or mental agony. 
It may be that dark days are ahead of us, that in 
this struggle upon which we have entered we are 
to taste a bitterness we have not known before. 
If this be so, we must remember that we have 
a great heritage of ideals and of opportunity. 
That gallant French saying, "Noblesse oblige," 



4 68 THE BOOK OF AMERICAN WARS 

applies to nations as it does to individual persons. 
We have had our Washington; we have had our 
Lincoln. We have enjoyed blessings such as 
have been showered on no other people in re- 
corded history. Our fathers and grandfathers 
and great-grandfathers were true to the wonder- 
ful trust put into their hands. We must and we 
shall be worthy of our country, and of them. 



APPENDIX MAPS 




The Field of Operations in the French and Indian War 



FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 

Time: Nine years, from 1755 to 1763 

Effort of the French to strike down into the heart of 
the colonies by way of the St. Lawrence, Lake Cham- 
plain, Lake George, and the Hudson River. 

Principal Battles: Braddock's Field, Lake George, 
Oswego, Fort William Henry, Ticonderoga, Louisburg, 
Fort Duquesne, Quebec. 

Principal Generals: English, Braddock, Forbes, 
Abercrombie, Amherst, Loudoun, Howe, Wolfe ; French, 
Drucourt, Bougainville, Levis, Montcalm. 




The Field of Operations in the Revolutionary War 



REVOLUTIONARY WAR 

Time: Seven years and six months, from 1775 to 

1783. 

Opening Scenes: New England. 

Main Struggle: New York, Delaware, New Jersey. 

Final Campaign : Southern Colonies, ending in Vir- 
ginia. England tried : first, to cut off New England from 
the rest ; second, to cut colonies in two along the old 
route from St. Lawrence through Lake Champlain to 
the Hudson; third, to reconquer the South, colony by 
colony. 

Principal Battles: Lexington, Bunker Hill, Long 
Island, Trenton, Germantown, Brandywine, Bennington, 
Fort Stanwix, Saratoga, Monmouth Court House, Stony 
Point, Camden, King's Mountain, Cowpens, Guilford 
Court House, Yorktown. 

Principal Generals: American, Washington, 
Greene, Lincoln, Schuyler, Lafayette, Rochambeau, Von 
Steuben ; English, Gage, Howe, Burgoyne, Clinton, Corn- 
wallis. 



THE CIVIL WAR 

Time: Four years, from 1861 to 1865. 

Operations in First Field : To gain control of coast 
and establish blockade, capture Richmond, and vanquish 
Lee's army. 

Operations in Second and Third Fields: Mainly 
to gain undisputed control of Mississippi. 

Principal Battles: Two battles of Bull Run, naval 
fight of Monitor and Merrimac, Shiloh, Yorktown, Mal- 
vern Hill, Antietam, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Chicka- 
mauga, Chattanooga, Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Atlanta, 
Cedar Creek, Nashville, Five Forks. 

Principal Generals: Union, Grant, Sherman, Sheri- 
dan, McClellan, Hooker, Meade, Thomas, Burnside, Hal- 
leck, Banks, Thomas ; Confederate, Lee, Jackson, Pem- 
berton, Early, Johnston, Pillow, Floyd. 




Territory Held by the Confederates at the Close of 1861 




Territory Held by the Confederates at the Close of 1802 




Territory Held by the Confederates at the Close of 1863 




Territory Held by the Confederates at the Close of 1864 



INDEX 



Abercrombie, General James, Armies — Continued 



40; 41; 49-50 
Acadia, 38 
Adams, John 
Proposes Washington for 

command of army, 102 
Interview with Gen. Howe, 

106 
Bitter remarks about army, 

139 
President, 178 
Adams, Samuel, J2; 74; 80; 

83 ; 86 ; 87 ; 98 
Aguinaldo, Emilio, 429; 432 
Alabama, Joins Confederacy, 

269 
Alamance, battle of, 81 
Alamo, Capture of, 218; 364 
Allen, Ethan, 95; 119; 144 
Amherst, General Jeffry, 45- 

52; 106 
Andre, Major John, 152-153; 

155 
Antietam, battle of, 311-12; 342 
Appomattox, 404 
Arbuthnot, General Marriot, 

146 
Arkansas, joins Confederacy, 

269 
Armada, Spanish, 6 
Armies 
British 
Losses in early battle of 

Revolution, 91 ; 100 
Character of, 113-117 
Activity in South in Revo- 
lution, 1 19-120; 144 



Points of vantage in War 

of 1812, 190-191 
Confederate 
Character of, 272 ; 274 
Numbers, 1862, 319 
Continental 
Besiege English in Boston, 

91 
Gage's tribute, to, ioo-ioi 
Character of, 103; 112- 

117; 164-166; 170-173 
Improved discipline in, 

104; 141 
Behavior at surrender of 

Cornwallis, 163-164 
Disbanded, 178 
United States 
Created, 198 
Reverses, War of 1812, 

190; 199-202 
New officers, 1812, 198-99 
Drilled by Gen. Scott, 203 
Effect of training in Mexi- 
can War, 226 
Numbers in 1861, 265 
Character, in Civil War, 

271-272 
Army of Potomac, 299; 

300; 312; 319; 354-365 
Numbers in 1862, 319 
Numbers reduced at end 

of Civil War, 413 

Numbers in 1898, 419 

Arnold, Gen. Benedict, no; 

119; T51 
Treason of, 152-153 



479 



480 



INDEX 



Arnold, Gen. Benedict — Cont. 
Opposes Steuben in Virginia, 
158 
Arnold, Margaret Shippen, 

I5i; 153 

Asgill, Captain, 167 
Atlanta, 389-390 

Bainbridge, Capt. William, 

181-182; 192 
Baltimore, Md., 205; 206-207; 

278 
Banks, Gen. Nathaniel P., 348; 

354 
Barbary Pirates, 180-185 ; 193 
Barclay, Capt. R. H., 196 
Beauregard Gen. P. G. T. 
At Fort Sumter, 281-282 
At Bull Run, 282-285 
Succeeds Johnston, 328 
Bladensburg, battle of, 205 
Blanco Y Arenas, Gen. Ramon, 

418; 449 
Blockade, 141-142; 179; 269; 

286-287 
Boscawen, Admiral Edward, 

29, 46; 106 
Boston, Mass., 84; 85; 91; 109; 

423 

Boston Massacre, 80-81 

Boston Teaparty, 81-83 

Bougainville, Gen. Louis, 41 

Bowie, James, 218 

Braddock, Gen. Edward, 29-33 

Bradstreet, John, 51 

Bragg, Gen. Braxton 
In Mexican War, 231 
In Civil War, 369-370; 377; 

379 
Brandywine, battle of, 128 
British Colonies in America 
Government and taxation in, 

14 



British Colonies — Continued 
Resentment against England, 

66 
Objection to new plans for, 
70 
Brown, Gen. Jacob, 200; 204 
Buchanan, James, 260; 262; 

263; 267; 323- 
Buckner, Gen. Simon Bolivar, 

323-324 
Buell, Gen. Don Carlos, 320; 

327 
Buena Vista, battle of, 230-33 
Bull Run 
First battle of, 282-5; 287; 

297; 299; 306 
Second battle of, 309; 340 
Bunker Hill, battle of, 94; 99- 

101 ; 109 
Burgoyne, Gen. John, 132-140 
Burns, John, 364 
Burnside, Gen. Ambrose E. 
Succeeds McClcllan, 313 
At Fredericksburg, 355-357 
Butler, Gen. Benjamin F., 333- 
334; 386 

Cabot, John, 5; 6; 16; 46 
California, 241-242; 336 
Camara, Admiral, 423; 437; 

453 

Camden, battle of, 154 

Campbell, Col., 144 

Canada 
French in, 7; 19 
Passes into British hands, 69 
Tories emigrate to, 77 
Importance to England, 109 
In War of 1812, 189; 190; 
195-196 

Carleton, Gen. Guy, in; 112 

Carpenter, Frank B., 339-340 

Carrick's Ford, 209 



INDEX 



481 



Carson, Kit, 242 
Cerro Gordo, battle of, 236 
Cervera Y Topete, Admiral 
Pascual 
At Cape Verde Islands, 423 
At Santiago, 433-434 5 436; 

444 
Destruction of his fleet, 448; 

4So; 453 
Champlain, Samuel de, 21 
Chancellorsville, battle of, 360- 

361 
Charleston, S. C, 145-146; 

256; 260 
Chattanooga, Tenn., 319; 368- 

377 
Chickamauga, battle of, 369- 

371 
Chippewa, battle of, 204 
Clay, Henry, 185; 189; 200; 

251 
Clinton, Gen. Henry 
Supersedes Howe, 142 
At Monmouth Court House, 

142-145 

Campaign in Georgia, 146 
Sends Andre to Arnold, 152 
Uncertain where French fleet 
will attack, 162 
Closen, Baron, 163 
Cobb, Col., 167 
Cockburn, Admiral George, 

205-207 
Cold Harbor, battle of, 385; 

387 
Colorado, 241 

Columbus, Christopher, 3; 7 
Concord, battle of, 89-91 
Confederate States of America 
States composing, 269 
Experiments in naval archi- 
tecture, 290-291 
Size of army, 1862, 319 



Confederate States— Continued 
Territory controlled by, 393- 

394 
Attempt to open political ne- 
gotiations, 398 
Congress 
Continental 
Action of Second, 93-97; 
101 ; 123; 139; 141-142; 
145 
Of the United States 

Embargo and Non Inter- 
course law, 187 
Votes to annex Texas, 220 
Measures during Mexican 

War, 223 ; 227 
Discusses Missouri Com- 
promise, 251 
Declares war against 
Spain, 418-420 
Constitutional Convention, 178 
Corinth, Miss., Occupied, 328- 

329 
Cornwallis, Gen. Charles 

New Jersey campaign, 124; 

126 
Southern campaign, 146; 

156-164 
Surrender, 164; mentioned, 

109; 406 
Cortes, Hernando, 225 ; 234; 235 
Cotton, 248-250; 255-257; 269 
Couch, Gen. Darius N., 313; 

355-356 
Cowpens, battle of, 158-159 
Crockett, David, 218 
Crown Point, Capture of, 119 
Cuba, 416-423 



Daiquiri, shelling of, 442 
Davis, Jefferson 
In Mexican War, 228; 231 



482 



INDEX 



Davis Jefferson — Continued 
President Confederate States 

of America, 262; 275 
Grants letters of marque to 

blockade runners, 287 
Message on emancipation, 

343-344 
At Chickamauga, 371 ; 372 ; 

mentioned, 378 
Decatur, Capt. Stephen, 182- 

185; 192 
Declaration of Independence, 

28; 78; 94; 268 
De Grasse, Adm. Francois J. 

P., 161-162 
De Kalb, Gen. Johann, 112; 

154 
Dewey, Admiral George 
Childhood, 424 
In Spanish War, 424-431 ; 

433 
Dinwiddie, Gov. Robert, 25 
Dragut, Torghud, 180 
Drake, Sir Francis, 6 
Drucourt, Gen., 46-48 
Dudley, Gov. Joseph, 15-16 
Dupont, Adm. Samuel Francis, 

287 

Early, Gen. Jubal A., 394 
El Caney, fight at, 444 
Ellsworth, Col. E. Elmer, 277 
Ellsworth, Oliver, 181 
Emancipation, 333-44 
Embargo, 187-188 
England 

Early settlers from, 5-6; 9; 

I3-I4 
Jamestown founded by, 7 
Attitude toward colonists, 9 
Attitude toward Indians, II ; 

21; 23 
Claim to Canada, 16; 17 



England — Continued 

Weak government in colo- 
nies, 19 
In Seven Years' War, 25-66 
Experiments in taxation, 70; 

71; 78-79 
Measures against colonists, 

83-91 
War and defeat, 108-164 
War with France, 183 
War of 1812, 185-211 
Attitude on slavery, 215-216 
Excitement over Trent affair, 
288-289 
Ericsson, John, 290; 293 
D'Estaing, Admiral Chas. Hec- 
tor, 145-146 
Eutaw Springs, battle of, 160 

Fair Oaks, battle of, 303 

Fannin, Col., 217-218 

Farragut, Admiral David Glas- 
gow, 345-348; 424 

Ferguson, Major, 157 

Five Forks, battle at, 401 

Florida 
Spanish province, 108; 190 
Bought by U. S., 215 ; 247 
Joins Confederacy, 269 

Floyd, Gen. John Buchanan, 
323; 324 

Foote, Admiral Andrew H., 
320-322 

Forbes, Gen., 34-36; 45 

Forts 
Dearborn, 200 
Donelson, 310-325; 354 
Duquesne, 18; 34-36; 45; 51; 

53 
Frontenac, 51 
Henry, 310-321; 325; 345 
Monroe, 291; 302; 304; 333; 

423 



INDEX 



48.3 



Forts — Continued 
Moultrie, 119; 261 
Niagara, 55 
Oswego, 39 

Stanwix, 54; 136-137; 151 
Stedman, 401 
Sumter, 262-266; 277; 315; 

33i 
Ticonderoga, 45; 49-51; 95; 

"9; 133 
William Henry, 40; 42-44 
France 
Explorers and colonies in 
America, 5-7; 9; 10; 12; 
16-17; 38 
Attitude toward Indians, 15; 

21-22 
Power of, 19; 44 
Part in Seven Years' War, 

25; 27; 32 
Loses Canada, 66; 69 
Part in Revolution, 112; 140 
At war with England, 185; 
186 
Franklin, battle of, 390 
Franklin, Benjamin, 28-30; 75; 

91 ; 106 
Franklin, William, 77 
Frederick the Great, 25; 112; 

457 
Fredericksburg, battle of, 355- 

356 
Fremont, Gen. John C., 241- 
242; 306; 336 

Gage, Gen. Thomas 
Military Gov. Boston, 84-86; 

92; 97-98 
Report on battle of Bunker 

Hill, 100-101 
Estimate of Patriot strength, 

106 
Superseded, 141 



Gage, Gen. Thomas— Cont. 
Mildness of his war-making, 

170 
Garcia Y Inegues, Gen. Calix, 

to, 441 J 453 
Gates, Gen. Horatio, 129; 138- 

139; 154 
George HI, 95 
Georgia 
Part in Revolution, 109; no; 

. I45 
Joins Confederacy, 269 

Called on to resist Sherman, 
391-392 
Germantown, battle at, 128 
Germany, 428 

Gettysburg, battle of, 361-365 
Goliad, massacre at, 217-218 
Gorgas, Gen. William C, 463 
Greeley, Horace, 341 
Grant, Ulysses S. 
Career before 1860, 222; 243; 

314-315 
In 1861, 317-318 
Captures Forts Henry and 

Donelson, 320-24 
Sbiloh, 325-328 
Vicksburg campaign, 329; 

345-354 
Chattanooga, 368-77 
Lieut. Gen., 377-378 
Opinion of Lee, 381 
Operations against Rich- 
mond, 383-388; 398 
Captures Lee's army, 399- 

407 
At Grand Review, 408 
Threatens Cuban interven- 
tion, 417 
Mentioned, 330; 459 
Greene, Gen. Nathanael 
Military methods, 115-116 



4 8 4 



INDEX 



Greene, Gen. Nathanael — Cont. 
Organizes Quartermaster's 

Dept., 141 
Commands in the South, 

154; 158-160 
Ancestry, 172 
Greene, Mrs. Nathanael, 248 
Gridlcy, 425 
Guadeloupe, 69 
Guasimas, fight at, 442-443 
Guilford Court House, battle 
at, 159-160 



Hale, Edward Everett, 466 

Hale. Nathan, 172 

Halifax, 38; 190-191 

Halleck, Gen. Henry W. 
General-in-chief, 308 
Misunderstanding with 

Grant, 325 
Approach on Corinth, 328- 

329 
Orders to Rosecrans, 369 
Mentioned, 320; 346; 351; 
362 

Hamilton, Alexander, 168-169 

Hancock, John, 83; 86-87; 96; 
98; 102 

Harrison, Gen. William Henry, 
201-2 

Harte, Bret, 171 

Havana, 421-423 

Hawkins, Gen., 446 

Henry VII, 5 

Henry, Patrick, 75; 102; 141 

Herkimer, Gen. Nicholas, 136- 
137; 172 

Hessians, 113-114; 135; 170 

Hobson, Capt. Richmond Pear- 
son, 436 

Holland, 119; 140; 164; 270 

Hood, Gen. John B., 389-390 



Hooker. Gen. Joseph, 357; 360- 

362; 372 
Houston, Samuel, 217; 218-220 
Howard, Gen. Oliver Otis, 355 ; 

360 
Howe, Gen. George Augustus, 

45; 50 
Howe, Admiral Richard, 106; 

120 
Howe, Gen. William 
Supersedes Gage, 97 
Abandons Boston, 105 
Interview with Members of 
Continental Congress, 
105-106 
New York campaign, 120- 

122 
In New Jersey, 124-28 
Takes Philadelphia, 128 
Fails Burgoyne, 133 
Superseded, 141 
Opinion of numbers neces- 
sary to conquer Patriots, 
106; 164 
Military methods. of, 170 
Hull, Capt. Isaac, 192; 200 
Hull, Gen. William, 199-200 
Hunter, Gen. David, 337 

Indian 

Attacks on early settlers, 7; 

15 
Attitude of Europeans to- 
ward, 10-11 
Influence character of Amer- 
ican fighting, 20; 24 
Tribal alliances with English 

and French, 21 
Treatment of captives, 22 
The red man's code, 27-28 
In Braddock's defeat, 31-33 
Desert Ft. Dnquesne, 35 
Border raids, 41-42 



INDEX 



485 



Indian — Continued 
Massacre at Fort William 

Henry 42-44 
At Ticonderoga, 50-51 
Under Sir William Johnson, 

54 

On both sides during Revo- 
lution, 150 

In War of 1812, 201-202 

Mentioned, 464 
Intolerable Acts, 83-84 
Jackson, Gen. Andrew 

In War of 1812, 201 

In Creek campaign, 207 

Battle of New Orleans, 208- 
210 

Nullification proclamation, 

253-254 
Mentioned, 260 
Jackson, Gen. Thomas Jona- 
than, "Stonewall," 274; 
306-307; 311 ; 312 
Jalapa, capture of, 237 
Jamestown, 7 
Jefferson, Thomas 

"Right of British America," 

73 
Joins Patriots, 76 

Influence in the Revolution, 

102 
Home injured by British, 145 
President, 178-179 
Makes war on Barbary Pi- 
rates, 180-82 
Remarks about "born gen- 
erals," 198 
Mentioned, 215 ; 247 
Joffre, Gen., 460 
Johnson, Andrew, 408 
Johnson, Sidney, 320; 327-8 
Johnson, Sir John, 133 
Johnson, Sir William, 39-40; 
54 



Johnston, Gen. Albert Sidney, 

326; 327 
Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., 302; 

388; 389; 393; 407 
Jones, Jacob, 192 
Jones, John Paul, 142; 179 

Kearney, Col. Philip, 242 
Kenesaw Mountain, battle at, 

388-389 
Kentucky 
Mentioned, 269; 318; 320; 

334 
Kilburn, Gen. Chas. L., 231 
Kilpatrick, Gen. Judson, 391 
Kings Mountain, battle at, 157 
Kosciuzko, Gen. Tadeusz, 112; 

139 



Lafayette, Gen. 

Opinion of the Revolution, 

117 
Wounded, 129 
Friendship with Washington, 

129-130 
Fits out a ship, 140 
At Monmouth Court House, 

143 
Tells of Andre's capture, 

152-153 
In final campaign of Revolu- 
tion, 161 
Mentioned, 165; 1C8; 172; 
466 
Lafitte Brothers, 208 
Langdon, Dr., 98 
Lee, Gen. Charles, 122-123; 

127; 143 
Lee, Gen. Henry, "Lighthorse 

Harry," 158; 274; 458 
Lee, Gen. Robert E. 
Joins the Confederates, 274 



486 



INDEX 



Lee, Gen. Robert E. — Cont. 
In Peninsula campaign, 303- 

307 
Fights Second Bull Run, 309 
At Antietam, 31 1-3 12 
Conference with Stonewall 

Jackson, 360 
Gettysburg, 361-364 
Defense of Richmond, 378- 

405 
Surrender, 406-407 
Mentioned, 465 
Levis, Gen., 41 
Lexington, battle of, 79; 87- 

915 94; 109; 424 
Linares, Gen., 441 ; 448 
Lincoln, Abraham 

Elected President, 256 
Character, 258-259 
Inauguration, 263-265 
Call for volunteers, 267 
Opinion of his task, 270 
War measures, 276-277 
Management of Trent affair, 

288-289 
Letter to McClellan, 308 
Puts McClellan in charge of 

defenses of Washington, 

310 
Removes McClellan, 312 
General War Order Number 

One, 321 
Opinion of Grant, 330 
Management of the slavery 

question, 334-44 
Letter to Hooker, 357-358 
Interest in army, 358-359 
Gettysburg Address, 366-367 
Thanks Rosecrans, 368 
Order to Rosecrans, 369 
Makes Grant Lieutenant-gen- 
eral, 377-379 
Letter to Grant, 382 



Lincoln, Abraham — Continued 
Attends Hampton Roads 

Conference, 398 
Visits Grant, 400 
Assassination of, 407 
Second Inaugural, 409 
Mentioned, 459; 465-6; 468 

Lincoln, Gen. Benjamin, 138; 
145-146; 154; 164 

Livingston, Robert, 76 

Longfellow, Henry W., 39; 87 

Long Island, battle of, 120-22 

Loudoun, Gen. John, 40-42; 44 

Louis XIV, 457 

Louisburg, 29; 45"49; S3 

Louisiana 

Mentioned, 16; 215-6; 247; 
269; 340 

Lundy's Lane, Battle, 204 

Lyon, Gen. Nathaniel, 297 

Lyons, Lord, 288 

Mackinac, 200 

Madison, Mrs. Dolly, 205-206 

Madison, James, 187; 188; 198; 
205 

"Maine," the, 418 

Malvern Hill, battle of, 304 

Manila, P. I., 429-430 

Manila Bay, battle of, 425-427 

Marshall, John, 130 

Martinique, 69 

Maryland, 287; 311; 334; 362 

Mason, James M., 287-8 

Massachusetts 
Dudley, governor of, 15-16 
Stand on taxation, 71 
Leader in revolution, 83-6; 

102; 109 
Far removed from southern 

colonies, 109 
Bells tolled, War of 1812, 189 
Hartford Convention, 253 



INDEX 



487 



Mather, Cotton, 99 
Mather, Increase, 99 
McClellan, Gen. George B. 

Early career, 297-298 

Creates Army of Potomac, 

299 

Character, 300 

Succeeds Scott, 301 

Operations against Rich- 
mond, 301-305 

Insubordinate letter, 307 

Recalled, 306 

Anger of cabinet against, 
309-10 

Antietam, 311-12 

Presidential candidate, 313 

Mentioned, 314; 317; 330; 

339»; 342; 355; 386; 391 

McDonough, Capt Thomas, 

196-197; 204 
McDowell, Gen. Irvin, 282- 

285; 305-306 
McKinley, President William, 

417-419; 421 
Meade, General George, 362; 

363-365; 404; 408 
Merritt, Gen. Wesley, 408 
Merritt, Gen., 428; 429; 431 
Mexico, war with, 215-243 
Mexico City, capture of, 238-41 
Miles, Gen. Nelson A., 421; 

450-52 
Minute Men 73 
Mississippi, Joins Confederacy, 

269 
Mississippi River, 16; 18; 215; 

247; 269; 272; 28r; 318; 

319; 3451 349 
Missouri 

Asks admission to Union as 

a slave state, 251 
Mentioned, 297; 298; 318; 

320; 334; 336 



Missouri Compromise, 251 

Mobile, Ala., 421 

Monitor and Merrimac, battle, 
289-296 

Monmouth Court House, bat- 
tle at, 142-143; 144 

Monroe, James, 102; 185 

Montcalm, Gen. Louis Joseph, 
41-44; 53; 65-66 

Monterey, battle at, 228 

Montgomery, Gen. Richard 
Opinion of American sol- 
diers, 70; 91 
Captures Montreal, no 
In attack on Quebec, in; 
119 

Montojo, Admiral, 425-427 

Montreal, 18; no; 112 

Morgan, Gen. Daniel, no; 

139; 158-159; 171 
Morris, Gouverneur, 76 
Morris, Robert, 125 
Moultrie, Col. William, 119 
Murfreesboro, battle of, 368 
Murray, Madam, 121 



Napoleon, 188; 203; 215; 247; 

270; 358; 457 
Navy, U. S. 
Unimportant before War of 

1812, 141; 178 
Opposed as undemocratic, 

179 
Successes, War of 1812, 190- 

197 
Contrast between men of 

English and American, 

193-194 

Officers join Confederacy, 

286 
Operations in Civil War, 

286-296 



488 



INDEX 



Navy, U. S. — Continued 
McClellan's charge against, 

305 
In Spanish War, 422-429; 

433-437; 44i; 448-450; 

452-453 
Nevada, 241 
New England, 9; 13-14; 18-19; 

71-74; 79-92; 94; 96-106; 

108-109; 119; 133-135; 

146; 189-190; 253; 465 
New Jersey, 118; 122-128; 142; 

170 
New Mexico, 241 
New Orleans, 204; 207-210; 

277; 281; 346; 421; 424 
New York City, 95; 119; 143; 

423 
New York, 39-44 J 49-5 1 J 55; 

95; 108-109; 1 18-124; 

127; 133-134; 136-139; 

142; 147-152; 162; 172- 

3; 195-197 
North, 144; 171; 221; 248-257; 

261; 266-274; 279-80; 

289; 297; 299; 333; 361; 

366; 413 
North Carolina 
Mentioned, 81; 84; 156-157; 

269; 393 
Nullification, 253 

Oglesby, Col. Richard J., 318 
O'Hara, Gen., 164; 406 
Ohio Valley, 16-17; 25; 36 
Ordinance of 1787, 250 
Oregon, 247 
Oriskany, battle of, 137 
Otis, James, 72; 74; 79-80 

Packenham, Gen. Edward, 209- 

210 
Palo Alto, battle of, 225 



Parker, Col. Ely S., 407 
Parker, Capt., 88. 
Patterson, Gen. Robert, 282-284 
Pearson, Capt., 142 
Pemberton, Gen. John C, 351-- 

353 
Peninsula Campaign, 302-309 
Pennsylvania, 25-3; 54; 123; 

128-132; 150-1 
Percy, Lord, 90 
Perry, Oliver Hazard, 196; 

199; 201 
Petersburg Mine, 396-398; 459 
Philadelphia, Pa., 86; 93-95; 

123; 128; 132; 142; 151; 

153; 162 
Philippi, battle at, 298 
Philippine Islands, 417; 423- 

432 
Pickett, Gen. George E., 401 
Pillow, Fort, Massacre at, 344 
Pillow, Gen. Gideon J., 323- 

324 
Pine Mountain, battle of, 388- 

389 
Pitcairn, Major, 88 
Pitcher, "Moll," 170 
Pitt, William, 45; 56; 77 
Pittsburg Landing, battle of, 

325-328 
Plattsburg Bay, battle of, 196- 

197 
Polk, James K., 220; 223; 416 
Pope, Gen. John, 309; 311 ; 341 
Porter, Admiral David D., 

347-350 
Port Hudson, 346; 348; 354 
Porto Rico, 433-435; 450; 452 
Preble, Admiral Edward, 184-5 
Prescott, Col. William, 98 
Princeton, battle of, 126 

Pulaski. Gen. Casimir, 112; 
M5; 172 



INDEX 



489 



Putnam, Gen. Israel, 49-50; 
98; 171 

Quebec, 7; 29; 55-66; no-iii; 
346 

Rawlins, Gen. John A., 316 

Red Cross, 462 

Resaca de la Palma, battle at, 

225 
Revere, Paul, 86-87 
Reynolds, Gen. John F., 231 
Riall, Gen., 204 
Richmond, Va., 270; 301-304; 

378-388; 395-407 
Rich Mountain, battle of, 299 
River Raisin, Massacre at, 202 
Rochambeau, Count de, 140- 

150; 162-163; 172 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 438-441 ; 

446 
Rosecrans, Gen. William S., 

368-371 
Ross, Betsy, 170 
Ross, Gen. Robert, 205-206 
Robin, Abbe, 162 
Rutledge, Edward, 106 

Sampson, Admiral W. T., 423; 

433-434; 437; 44i; 448; 

45o _ 
San Francisco, 241 ; 423; 428 
Sanitary Commission, 462 
San Juan Hill, capture of, 

446-7 
Santa Anna, Gen. Antonio 

Lopez de, 218-221 ; 229- 

233; 235-240 
Santiago de Cuba, 434-451 
Saratoga, battles of, 138-139 
Saunders, Admiral, 58-9; 61; 

63; 346 
Savannah, Ga., 145-6; 392 



Schley, Admiral Winfield S., 

423; 434-435; 437; 450 
Schofield, Gen. John M., 393 ' 
Schuyler, Gen. Philip, 134; 

138; 160; 172 
Scott, Gen. Winfield 

In War of 1812, 202-204 
Presidential ambitions, 224 
Campaign in Mexico, 229; 

234-241 
In Civil War, 262-265; 274; 
281; 297-298; 300 
Seven Days' Battles, 303 ; 307 
Sevier, John, 171 
Seward, William H., 260; 340 
Shafter Gen. William Rufus, 
437; 44i; 443; 445; 447- 
448; 450; 452 
Shenandoah Valley, 273; 394; 

_ 434 
Sheridan, Gen. Philip 
At Missionary Ridge, 375- 

377 
In the Shenandoah Valley, 

394 ; 400 
In final operations against 
Lee, 401-405 ; 408 
Sherman, Gen. William Te- 
cumseh 
In Mexican War, 231 
Cooperates with Grant, 347; 

372-375 
Succeeds Grant in the West, 

379 
On to Atlanta and the sea, 

388-393 
In final campaign, 392 ; 407- 
408 
Shiloh, battle of, 325-328 
Shirley, William, 39 
Slavery 
England's attitude toward, 
216 



490 



INDEX 



Slavery — Continued 

Discussions in Congress, 220 
Deplored in early years of 

U. S., 249 
Sectional alignment on, 250 
Missouri Compromise, 251 
Increasing bitterness, 252-257 
Corner-stone theory, 263 
Slaves 
Loyalty during Revolution, 

145; 170 
Importation ended, 249 
Military problem in Civil 

War, 333-343 
Emancipated, 343 
Loyalty in Civil War, 344 
Slidell, John, 287-288 
Smith, Gen. E. Kirby, 408 
Smith, Gen. William F, 371; 

376 
Smythe, Gen. Alexander, 200 
Snyder, Christopher, 80 
Sons of Liberty, 79 
South 
In the Revolution, 81 ; 84 ; 
108; no; 118; 120; 144- 
146; 150; 154-156 
In War of 1812, 204; 207-210 
Sentiment toward slavery, 

216; 248-257 
Secession preparations, 261- 

263 
Civil War in, 266-408 
Mentioned, 413; 465; 467 
South Carolina 

Sends Rice to Boston, 84 
Unsuccessful British cam- 
paigns against, 119; 156- 

157 
Nullification troubles in, 253- 

255 
Joins Confederacy, 269 
Railroads destroyed in, 392 



Spanish War, 418-454 
Spain 
American exploration and 

colonies, 5 ; 7; 9-10 
Friendly toward America 
after Burgoyne's sur- 
render, 140 
War with England, 164 
Refuses to sell Cuba, 416 
Recalls Weyler, 417 
Forces of, 422-423 
Mentioned, 12; 69; 421; 424; 
428 
Spotsylvania Court House, bat- 
tle of, 384 
Stamp Act, 78 
Stanwix, Gen. John, 54 
Stark, Capt. John, 49; 135 
State Rights, 177-178; 253; 

261 ; 274 
St. Augustine, Fla., 7 
Stevens, Alexander H., 263; 

398 
St Leger, Col. Barry, 133; 

136-138 
Steuben, Baron von, 112-113; 
130; 141; 158-159; 161; 
172 
Stony Point, capture of, 147- 

149 
Stringham, Admiral Silas H., 

^7 
Stuart, Gen. J. E, B., 304 
Sweden, 25; 164 



Tampa, Fla., 421 ; 438-440 
Tarleton, Gen. Banastre, 158- 

159 
Taylor, Gen. Zachary 
In Mexican War, 221-232 
Elected President, 233 
Mentioned, 234-236; 261 



INDEX 



491 



Tecumseh, 201-202 
Tennessee, 310-320; 300 
Texas, 215-221 ; 241 ; 269 
Thames, battle of, 202 
Thomas, Gen. George H., 231; 

371-372; 375-376; 390 
Tilghman, Mr., 168 
Tories, 77; 109; 119; 144; 189 
Treaty of Ghent, 210; 289 
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 

241 
Trenton, battle of, 124-125 
Trist, Nicholas, 2.17-238 
Tryon, William, 81 ; 146-147 

Uncle Sam, 211 
Utah, 241 

Valley Forge, 113; 128-131 
Vaudreuil, Marquis de, 53 
Vera Cruz, 234-235; 237 
Vicksburg, Miss., 330; 345- 

354; 368; 459 
Virginia 
In Colonial days, 6; 7; 13; 

30; 32-33; 35 ; 71 

Action on Revolution, 102; 

145 
Joins Confederacy, 269; 278 
West Virginia secedes, 298 
Mentioned, 334; 457; 465 

War 

Difference between in Amer- 
ica and Europe, 19-20 
Fashions of battle change, 

457 
Need for preparation, 453- 

454; 458-459 
Civil War, 243; 247-409; 

413-414; 419-4^0; 457; 

460 ; 462 ; 465 ; 475 



War — Continued 

War of 18 1 2, 177-21 1 ; 217; 

225; 220; 460 
French and Indian, 16-66; 

69-70; 471 
Governor Dudley's Indian, 

15 
Governor Drummer's Indian, 

16 
King William's, 15 
Mexican, 215-43; 247; 252; 

297; 328; 353 5 33i; 459J 

460 
Revolution, 78-173; 247; 328; 

35i; 392; 458; 460; 465; 

473 
Seven Years' War, 25 
Spanish, 413-454; 460," 462 
War with Tripoli, 180-185 
Warren, James, 74 
Warren, Mercy, 75 
Washington, D. C. 

Captured by British, 205-206 
Exodus of office holders, 

266-267 
Cut off from North, 278-280 
Threatened by Early, 394 
Grand Review in, 408-409 
Mentioned, 288; 297; 302; 

304; 307; 3io; 341; 362; 

434; 448 
Washington, George 

Sent to Western Pennsyl- 
vania, 25 
Early life, 26 

Battle of Great Meadows, 27 
Surrender of Fort Necessity, 

28 ' 
On Braddock's staff, 30; 23 
Part in capture of Fort Du- 

quesne, 34-35 
French and Indian War his 

military school, 66 



492 



INDEX 



Washington, , George — Cont. 

Joins Patriots, 76 

Threatens to go to relief of 
Boston, 84 

Commander Continental Ar- 
my, 101-104 

Answer to Gen. Howe, 120 

Plot to poison, 122 

Campaign in New Jersey, 
122-28 

Friendship with Lafayette, 
129 

Criticism of, 139 

At Monmouth Court House, 
142-143 

Home menaced, 145 

Orders capture of Stony 
Point, 147-149 

Expressions of discourage- 
ment, 150; 155 

Reprimands Arnold, 151 

Approves Andre's death sen- 
tence, 153-154 

Wishes Greene to command 
in South, 154 

March to Virginia, 161-162 

Character, 166-170 

Quarrel with Hamilton, 168- 
169 

Elected President, 178 

Mentioned, no; 160; 172; 
181; 270-272; 359; 46r; 
465-6; 468 
Washington, Lawrence, 25-26 



Wayne, Gen. Anthony, 147- 

149; 161; 173 
Weitzel, Gen. Godfrey, 403 
Wellington, Duke of, 209-210; 

239 

West Indies, 69; 77; 191 
West Virginia, 298; 334 
Weyler, Gen. Valeriano, 417- 

418 
Wheeler, Gen. Joseph, 443 
Whitney, Eli, 248-250 
Wilderness, fighting in, 383 
Williamsburg, battle of, 303 
Wilmot, David, 252 
Wilkes, Capt. Charles, 288 
Wilson's Creek, battle at, 297 
Wolfe, Gen. James 

Takes part in capture of 
Louisburg, 45-9 

Returns to England, 52 

Disgust with American serv- 
ice, 55-56 

Commands expedition against 
Quebec, 56-66 

Mentioned, 70; 91; 199 
Wood, Gen Leonard, 439 
Worden, Lieut. John L., 293- 

295 
Worth, Gen. William J., 229 
Writs of Assistance, 72 

Yorktown, 161-164; 271; 302- 

305 
Young, Gen., 443 



OUR NATION 
IN THE BUILDING 

By Helen Nicolay 

Author of " The Book of American Wars, " etc. 

Of the period of national shaking together and development the 
author writes almost as if she were an eye-witness. Leaving cheerfully 
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there is nothing mummy-like about American history, however much his- 
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Some of the chapter-titles are: "An Idol's Successor," "A Baleful 
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THE ROOTS 
OF THE WAR 

By William Stearns Davis 

In Collaboration with William Anderson and Mason W. Tyler 

This book undertakes to outline the circumstances that made possible 
Germany's inconceivably daring attempt to achieve at one, or, at most, 
two or three ruthless and gigantic strokes of the sword, the establishment 
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It is to discover some of these roots and their fateful growths that 
this book was written. It covers especially the period from 1870 to 1914, 
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The authors say in their preface: "By general consent the period of 
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AMERICA'S FOREIGN 

RELATIONS 

By Willis Fletcher Johnson 

Author of "A Century of Expansion," etc. 

A non-technical, though studiously accurate, narrative designed to 
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A history of the foreign relations of the United States, the origin 
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development of our relations with Great Britain." 

Royal octavo, two vols.; 1000 pages, 

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16 illustrations 

Price $6.00, boxed 

At All Bookstores TUC fTlUTTTRY Cd 353 Fourth Avenue 
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RUSSIA IN UPHEAVAL 



By Edward Alsworth Ross 

Author of "South of Panama," etc 

Many writers have pictured Russia in the throes of revolution, but 
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